The Missouri Supreme Court has called off an execution of a man convicted of killing a former newspaper reporter, state officials said Thursday.

The court withdrew the execution warrant for Marcellus Williams, 46, whose execution was scheduled for next Wednesday.

A court spokeswoman declined to discuss the reason.

After a state record 10 executions in 2014, Williams’ execution was the first scheduled in Missouri this year.

Williams was convicted of the 1998 fatal stabbing of Lisha Gayle, a former reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch who left the paper in 1992.

Williams’ attorneys had asked the courts to stop the execution, citing a lack of evidence. They also sought additional DNA testing they said could prove Williams was innocent.

Messages left with those attorneys and with the Missouri Attorney General’s Office were not immediately returned.

Williams was burglarizing Gayle’s University City home when he realized she was in the shower. He took a knife from the kitchen and attacked her when she came downstairs, stabbing her more than 20 times before stealing a laptop computer and other items.

The Missouri Supreme Court on Wednesday set an execution date for Marcellus Williams, the man who fatally stabbed former Post-Dispatch reporter Lisha Gayle at her home in University City in 1998.

Marcellus Williams, 45, is scheduled to die by lethal injection at the state prison in Bonne Terre on Jan. 28.

Williams’ execution would be the first in 2015, following a record year in which Missouri carried out 10 executions.

Williams killed Gayle, 42, at her home in the gated Ames Place neighborhood of University City on Aug. 11, 1998. Williams was burglarizing the home when Gayle, who had been taking a shower, surprised him. He stabbed her repeatedly while she fought for her life.

After a jury convicted Williams at a trial in 2001, St. Louis County Circuit Judge Emmett M. O’Brien sentenced Williams to death. The judge also ordered Williams to serve consecutive terms of life in prison for robbery, 30 years for burglary and 30 years each for two weapons violations.

Before sentencing, Williams told the judge he lacked jurisdiction — that only God had that authority.

Gayle was a Post-Dispatch reporter from 1981-92. She left the paper to do volunteer social work with children and the poor.