Avenel man charged in murders already in jail
BY KATHY CHANG
Staff Writer

WOODBRIDGE - Michael E. Ross II, 23, would have been eligible for parole from Mid-State Correctional Facility in Wrightstown next month.

But he probably won't be going home anytime soon.

Ross was arrested and charged in jail with the murders of two Russian men on Sept. 11. The murder charges came almost three years after the two men were found shot to death in front of a housing development in the Avenel section of Woodbridge.

"He is only in here for a minor offense," state Department of Corrections spokesperson Matthew Schuman said. "He was sentenced to a maximum of a year and a half on March 29, but the sentence usually drops to six to seven months. The likelihood for him to be eligible for parole now is highly unlikely."

Ross was being held at the facility for aggravated assault by pointing a gun at someone and for theft charges, Schuman said.

Middlesex County Assistant Prosecutor Julie Davidson said Ross is currently still at Mid-State Correctional Facility.

"He will be transported very shortly to Middlesex County Adult Correction Center in North Brunswick," she said.

Ross, of Chestnut Street, was held on $1.55 million bail with no 10 percent option in connection with the deaths of Aleksy Bautin, 26, Forest View Drive, Avenel, and Sergey Barbashov, 21, Edison, authorities from the Middlesex County Prosecutor's Office said.

Ross was charged with two counts of first-degree murder, one second-degree count of possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose and one third-degree count of unlawful possession of a weapon, authorities said.

Both men were found shot to death in the front seat of a red 1999 Volkswagen parked near the Forest View apartments. Each man had been shot several times, according to authorities.

The arrest came after witnesses' statements and a "tireless investigation by Detective Christopher Lyons of the Woodbridge Police Department and Investigator Mark Clements of the Prosecutor's Office, authorities have said.

Davidson said even though the murders occurred in 2003, it was still an open case.

"The case has been an open case since the murders," Davidson said. "The case is still an ongoing investigation, and we do have a few theories about the motive for the shootings."

Police were dispatched to Yardley Avenue inside the apartment complex at 10:58 p.m. on Oct. 30, 2003, after a resident called police about gunshots in the area, according to police reports. Bautin, a computer programmer for TheaterMania in New York City, was pronounced dead at the scene, only a few hundred feet from his parents' third-floor apartment.

Barbashov died several hour later, on Oct. 31, 2003, at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ) in Newark. He was employed by Olger Motors in Bridgeton.