Burlington Co. Man Admits Role In Fatal Robbery Shooting: Prosecutor

WILLINGBORO, NJ - A Willingboro man has pleaded guilty to fatally shooting a 22-year-old woman in 2020 inside her Maple Shade apartment, authorities said.

Semaj T. Pittman, 23, pled guilty in Superior Court in Mount Holly on Friday to one count of first-degree aggravated manslaughter in exchange for a 25-year term in state prison following an agreement with the prosecutor’s office, Burlington County Prosecutor LaChia L. Bradshaw said in a statement.

Sentencing is scheduled for June 30.

The charge stems from a Feb. 23, 2020 incident in which officers from the Maple Shade Police Department were called to The Arbors apartment complex on Lenola Road for a reported shooting. At the scene, officers found a man and a woman with gunshot wounds near the elevator on the ground floor, Bradshaw said.

The two victims were transported to Cooper University Medical Center in Camden where the woman, 22-year-old Kayla Winkler, was pronounced dead, Bradshaw said. Her boyfriend, Ramek Bass of Philadelphia, P.a., then 24 years old, was treated for a gunshot wound to the shoulder.

An investigation later found that Pittman and a teenager went to the apartment to rob Winkler and Bass, whom they knew, Bradshaw said. After they were invited inside the apartment, Pittman brandished a gun and shot the victims as they tried to leave the unit.

The teenager, an Evesham Township resident, pleaded guilty last year to first-degree murder. His name is being withheld by police as he was a minor at the time the crime was committed.