Camden County Prosecutor Mary Eva Colalillo and Camden County Police Chief Scott Thomson announced that a Camden man today admitted conspiring with another man to commit a 2011 double homicide.
Phillip L. Byrd, 24, pleaded guilty in Superior Court in Camden to conspiracy to commit murder in connection with the deaths of 20-year-old Antwan Brown and 20-year-oldTravon Kinard.
The victims, both Camden residents, were found fatally shot in a 1999 Pontiac Grand Prix parked on the 1100 block of Mechanic Street in Camden around 7:20 p.m. July 26, 2011.
A cellphone recovered at the scene linked Byrd and another 21-year-old Raheem D. Simmons, also from Camden, to the crime.
In accepting the plea, Byrd admitted he conspired with Simmons to kill the Brown and Kinard. Simmons admitted fatally shooting both men. Neither defendant disclosed a motive for the killing in court.
Under the plea, Byrd faces a sentence of 20 years in state prison. He is scheduled to be sentenced April 24.
Simmons pleaded guilty in March 2014 to two counts of Aggravated Manslaughter. He was sentenced in May 2014 to 30 years in state prison followed by five years of parole supervision.
Both defendants will be required to serve at least 85 percent of their sentences before they are eligible for parole.
Byrd, Simmons and a third man previously pleaded guilty in Atlantic County to Felony Murder for the September 2011 fatal shooting of a Middlesex County man during a carjacking in a parking garage at the Taj Mahal Casino in Atlantic City.
Byrd was sentenced in that case to 47 years in state prison. Simmons received a 30-year prison term for the killing.