Former girlfriend of murder suspect says he confessed
Witness said suspect told her fatal shooting was an accident
BY KATHY CHANG Staff Writer
Aformer girlfriend of Michael E. Ross II, 25, told the jury on April 2 that Ross confessed to her on two occasions that he shot and killed two Russian men in front of Building 12 of the Forest View apartment complex in the Avenel section of Woodbridge Township on Oct. 30, 2003.

"He said, 'I did it,' " Sharhi Roberts, 24, recalled her boyfriend at the time saying on Oct. 31, 2003, the day after the shootings.

Roberts, who testified in Superior Court in New Brunswick that she dated Ross from 2002 to 2005, said she brushed off Ross'words at first because at the time, she was on her cell phone having an argument with her sister.

Ross, formerly of Chestnut Avenue, was arrested and charged on Sept. 11, 2006, in connection with the deaths of Aleksy Bautin, 26, Forest View Drive, Avenel, and Sergey Barbashov, 21, Edison.

Both men were found shot to death in the front seat of a red 1999 Volkswagen parked across the street from Building 12 of the Forest View apartment complex. Each man had been shot several times, according to authorities.

Ross pleaded not guilty to the two counts of murder and two counts of weapons charges at his arraignment on Oct. 5, 2006. He has been held at the Middlesex County Adult Correction Center, North Brunswick, since his arrest. Ross faces up to 30 years to life in prison if convicted of the murder charges, authorities said.

About a year after the alleged confession, Roberts asked Ross if he "really killed those people [Bautin and Barbashov]."

"He said, 'Yes, it was an accident … I shot at the wrong car, it was meant for somebody else,' " said Roberts. "He said he then walked to the car and took the shell casings [from the gun] out of the car."R

oberts testified that Ross told her that the shootings were meant for a man named "Mitch" in response to an incident that occurred on Oct. 1, 2003. The incident involved a car accident on Rahway Avenue in Avenel between Ross and Mitch, where Mitch allegedly pulled a gun on Ross.

Ross had made a police report after the Oct. 1, 2003, incident. He described the vehicle involved as a burgundy Taurus or Mercury Sable.

Roberts also testified that she'd had a heated argument with Ross before her first statement with police on Jan. 26, 2006, where she threatened to use the shootings against Ross.

"He asked me what I was talking about and told me he made it [the shootings] up, and that was the end of the conversation," said Roberts, who said she was embarrassed to say that she and Ross would threaten and scare each other during their relationship.

However, during Roberts' two statements to police, she did not mention the heated argument she'd had with Ross, because she felt that the police didn't want to hear about the argument.

Woodbridge Detective Christopher Lyons testified that he received new information from a concerned citizen about the shootings of Bautin and Barbashov the first week of November 2004, which focused on Ross as the shooter.

Lyons, who was assigned to the case that same week, said he observed that Roberts and her sister were on the schedule for Woodbridge Municipal Court on an unrelated matter and took the opportunity to approach them for more information about the double homicide.

"I asked [Roberts' sister] what was the worst thing her sister's boyfriend [Ross] had ever done," said Lyons. "She became visibly upset and began to cry. Then I asked Sharhi to relay what her sister told me, but she also became visibly upset, began yelling at her sister and walked out of the police station."

Roberts said she did not come forward to police with what Ross had told her because by then she believed he made it up, and she was still in love with him. She testified that police harassed her for information, but Lyons testified that he did not harass Roberts and said police were investigating a double homicide and using police tactics.

Ronald Huff, 39, who lived on Village Drive in Avenel at the time of the murders, testified that he only knew Ross as "Three-sixty" or "Sixty."

"He's from the neighborhood and one of the younger kids," said Huff, who grew up in Avenel but now lives in Virginia.

Huff said he didn't tell everything he knew to police because he did not want to implicate himself with the murders.

"I was scared, and the police did not ask the right questions," he said.

Huff said he walked to his old neighborhood on the other side of Avenel to see if his friend was home on the night of the murders.

"I've always walked around, and I still walk everywhere," he said. "My friend wasn't home, so I went down Chestnut Avenue to see if my other friend was home, but he wasn't home at the time. I saw there was a bunch of people across the street at Greg Wakefield's house. We just have a 'hi and bye' relationship. I hung out for a while to kill time before my friends would be home."

Huff said he went to a liquor store in Carteret with Ross and Jamil McKnight, whom he knew as "Segatious," and then went back to McKnight's house on Morrissey Avenue.

"We drank a little bit, and then we along with Sherrill Williams, who I knew as 'Boo,' got into the car again," he said. "They said they were going to call up some girls. I was in the back seat with [Ross]. We went down toward Chestnut Avenue and the Forest View apartment complex. Then [Ross] said, 'Yo, that's them. Yo, that's them.'He kept on saying that it was the red Jetta that he had a [problem] with from the [incident] on Rahway Avenue."

Huff, who did not tell police about being in the car until 2007, said he didn't think the people Ross saw were the people he was looking for.

"[McKnight] and [Williams] looked puzzled, that's why I don't think they knew what [Ross] was talking about," he said. "Ross then went on to ask [McKnight] if he still 'got that' at his house, and [McKnight] said, 'Yeah,' and [Ross] said, 'Let's go get it.' "

Huff, who said he didn't know what "that" referred to, said they headed out of Forest View and toward Chestnut Avenue when he asked to be let out of the vehicle. When Huff got out of the vehicle, he watched the vehicle leave and stop at McKnight's house and then come back down and make a left on Chestnut Avenue.

"I walked towards the Knights of Columbus [on Morrissey Avenue] and that's when I heard about six pops that sounded like firecrackers," he said. "They weren't loud, that's why I thought they were firecrackers. I continued walking towards the Forest View apartments onto Yardley Avenue. I remember that it was dark, and then I noticed a car with its windows blown out. I couldn't believe what I was seeing."

Huff said he approached the vehicle and saw the passenger.

"I realized that the passenger [Bautin] was dead, and the driver [Barbashov] was jumping like he was trying to gasp for air," he said. "I kneeled down and saw that his cell phone was out like he was trying to dial 911."

Huff said he tried to talk to Barbashov.

"I asked if he was OK, and he asked about his friend," he said. "I told him that his friend was gone. I heard the sirens and I told him that they were coming for him."

When Huff saw the police come, he said he left the scene.

"I didn't want to be implicated in the crime, and I was scared," said Huff, who also said he had an open container of alcohol in his hand. "I dumped out the alcohol behind the building. A crowd started gathering and I fell back into the crowd."

Police at the time did ask Huff what he observed, and he told police that he was just walking down Yardley Avenue when he saw the vehicle.

The trial is expected to last three weeks.