SOUTH BEND — A 34-year-old South Bend man is going on trial this week for a 1996 murder.
Shawn Williams was charged in August for the shooting death of Lyman Diggins, who was found in a burning car in Mishawaka on Nov. 6, 1996, dead from multiple gunshot wounds.
The case went unsolved until 2004, when a man arrested on federal charges provided information to police linking Williams and another man, Rodney Johnson, to the crime.
Johnson and Williams had decided to kill Diggins, to whom they owed drug money, prosecutors said. They allegedly lured Diggins to drive in his Chevy Blazer to a storage facility on Douglas Road, where they shot him. They then transported his body to Home Street, poured gasoline on it, set the vehicle on fire and fled.
