Man pleads guilty to killing woman in her Burlington County apartment

A Burlington County man has admitted that he shot a 22-year-old woman to death in her Maple Shade apartment in a 2020 robbery that turned fatal, authorities said Monday.

Semaj T. Pittman, 23, pleaded guilty to aggravated manslaughter Friday as part of a deal to receive a 25-year prison term for killing Kayla Winkler in February 2020, Burlington County Prosecutor LaChia L. Bradshaw said. Pittman is scheduled to be sentenced June 30.

On Feb. 23, 2020, Pittman, of Willingboro, and an Evesham Township teenager went to the Arbors apartment complex, on the 200 block of South Lenola Road, where Winkler lived, to rob her of marijuana, authorities said. Winkler sold marijuana and LSD from her Maple Shade apartment and her boyfriend Ramek Bass knew Pittman, authorities said.

Once Pittman and the teen, whose name was not released because he was a juvenile at the time of the crime, were let into the apartment, Pittman pulled out a gun and fired one shot and grabbed a bag of marijuana that Bass had been holding, authorities said. Bass was standing in front of Winkler when Pittman shot at them, authorities said.

When police arrived, they found Winkler and Bass, both with gunshot wounds, coming out of an elevator and onto the ground floor of the building, authorities said.

Winkler was taken to Cooper University Hospital in Camden, where she was pronounced dead. Bass was treated for a gunshot wound to the shoulder and released.

Pittman’s teen accomplice pleaded guilty last year to first-degree murder, authorities said.