SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) – Just days before he left office, former Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner granted posthumous clemency to a man imprisoned for a stabbing that a serial killer later confessed to committing.

The Illinois Innocence Project at the University of Illinois in Springfield says Grover Thompson received the first posthumous exoneration in state history. Illinois Prisoner Review Board spokesman Jason Sweat said Tuesday that Rauner granted Thompson executive clemency on Friday.

The Innocence Project plans a 2 p.m. news conference, which Thompson’s nephew is expected to attend.

Thompson died in 1996 while serving a 40-year sentence for the attempted 1981 murder of 72-year-old Ida White in Mount Vernon. In 2007 serial killer Timothy Krajcir confessed to stabbing White.

Rauner denied Thompson clemency in 2015.