A married couple who had been sentenced to death and life in jail for murder, rape and robbery reunited briefly after a court in Heilongjiang province announced the judgment, Shenghuo Bao, a local newspaper, reported on Wednesday.

Bai Yunjiang and his wife, Tan Beibei, received their sentences on Monday from the Jiamusi Intermediate People's Court for their crimes against girls in the city last year.

Xu Zhennan, a court police officer, told the paper that Bai trembled and frowned as his death sentence was announced and he said he would appeal to a higher court.

"But Tan kept calm during the judgment announcement. Her head remained bowed for half an hour and she showed no facial expression," the paper quoted Xu as saying.

When the two met after the sentencing, Tan apologized to Bai and said she missed him, adding she had carved Bai's name on her arm, the report said.

"At that time, Bai was still trembling and said he had also carved Tan's name on his arm," Xu told the paper, adding the two were then escorted to separate police cars.

On July 24, Bai gave a 16-year-old girl yogurt laced with a drug to make her unconscious, with the intention of then having sex with her. The girl, Hu Yixuan, had been lured to the couple's home by Tan, who was pregnant at the time, from a street in Jiamusi, but Bai failed in his attempted rape.

The couple then suffocated the girl, put her body in a suitcase and buried it.

The couple was arrested on July 28 and the body was identified the next day.

Prior to that murder, Tan had lured other girls home where her husband raped them and the couple robbed them of their jewelry.

The city court said the couple's behavior was brutal and caused great negative influence to society, so deserved extreme punishment.

Because Tan was pregnant when she was detained, the court gave her a more lenient sentence.

The victim's father told the paper he cannot accept the verdict, and believed Tan should also be sentenced to death.