What an inmate sentenced to death thought to be his last meal turned out to be just another dinner, after the parole board changed its death sentence to life without parole.

Samuel David Crowe was convicted of killing a man during a robbery. He was scheduled be executed by injection at 7 p.m. ET Thursday at Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson, but the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles changed the sentence just hours before the execution. They did not give a reason for this new decision.

According to CNN, Crowe was convicted in 1988 of murdering Joseph V. Pala, the manager of Wicks Lumber Company in Douglas County, a murder to which he admitted.

Ann Fort, Crowe’s attorney, said that her client couldn’t believe the news but he felt remorse for his actions.

According to CNN, the attorney said that Crowe has realized over the years “the deep harm that he caused when he committed this crime.”

On the other hand, Pala’s family was very upset about the news and they sent a representative to speak to the board on their behalf.

According to Reuters, Stephen Bright, president of the Southern Center for Human Rights said that the decision to grant clemency right on the day of the execution was “extraordinarily rare.”

Local media reports said that Crowe had a cocaine habit and he was counseling the inmates about the effects of this drug, giving example his own situation. He didn’t want them to go through the same mistakes.

41 men have been executed since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1973.