An award-winning Chinese author has been sentenced to death 23 years after murdering 4 people, including a family of 3, for money. The 53-year-old criminal, Liu Yongbiao, and an accomplice robbed and killed the victims in a family-run guesthouse before living as free men for more than 2 decades. During the time, Liu became an acclaimed author in China. In a previous interview with China Central Television Station, Liu confessed that some of his novels were inspired by his thoughts about the murder. But Liu did not dare to create any characters based on the people he had killed, he told a reporter from the China Central Television Station last year. Liu also admitted that the bloody scenes and gory details had haunted him throughout the years and the feeling was 'worse than dying'. Liu and his accomplice, named by the court as Wang, were both given a death penalty today during a trial in Huzhou, east China's Zhejiang Province, according to the court.