Xu Xinlian, 39, who was a monk for about 18 years in Jiujiang County, was given a death sentence with two years' reprieve.
He was stripped of his political rights for life according to the ruling by the intermediate people's court of Jiujiang City, Jiangxi Province.
Xu and five others were accused of killing a couple and injured a two-year-old child in 1994 at a dormitory of the railway bureau of Jiujiang County.
The other suspects were arrested after the crime, but Xu has been at large for 18 years masquerading as a monk.
He was caught in a Buddhist temple in Hangzhou, capital of Zhejiang Province, on November 11 last year, when he was acting as monastery manager for two local temples and was known as monk Weidi.
The court ruled that Xu was the principal criminal of the case, since he played a leading role in the murder.
Xu was sentenced to death for the cruelty of the murder and the severity of its consequence, but he was granted two years' reprieve because he had no other criminal record and confessed his guilt after being caught, the court said.