A local Chinese court has rejected the appeal filed by a most wanted spree killer who had been sentenced to death for murder, robbery and rape, a court verdict said.

The Foshan Municipal Intermediate People's Court in south China's Guangdong Province, on Friday upheld the death sentence of Cheng Ruilong without reprieve but reduced the number of murder victims in his case from 13 to 11, as the bodies of a woman and her daughter allegedly killed by Cheng were never found.

Cheng, 37, who used various aliases, was found to have committed a series of violent crimes in several provinces in southern and eastern China between May 1996 and January 2005. The murder victims included three police officers.

Listed as one of the top wanted suspects by the Ministry of Public Security, Cheng was arrested in 2005. He was sentenced to death by Foshan's intermediate court in February 2010.