Texas death row inmate Ruben Gutierrez was 20 minutes away from being moved from a holding cell to the death chamber in Huntsville to wait his lethal injection on Tuesday evening.
But the U.S. Supreme Court stepped in and gave him an unusual last-minute reprieve.
Gutierrez, who was praying with a prison chaplain exclaimed, "God is great! I wasn't expecting this," the Associated Press reported.
Gutierrez was spending his last hours with his wife and the chaplain.
Escolastica Harrison, 85, was killed in 1989 at her home in Brownsville. Prosecutors say she was killed as part of a plot to steal more than $600,000 she kept herself because she didn't trust banks.
She was struck repeatedly and stabbed multiple times in the head, causing her death.
Her family was upset by the delay.
"It's just devastating news, you know? It's already been over two and a half decades waiting for this to happen," Alex Hernandez, Harrison's nephew, told KRGV-TV.
Gutierrez has denied being involved in the murder and has repeatedly sought DNA evidence he claims would clear him. Prosecutors have claimed the DNA request is simply a delay tactic.