MS father admits to wife’s beating death. ‘I replay that day over and over,’ child says
A Long Beach man who beat his wife to death with a concrete pipe and wrench is headed to prison for life after pleading guilty to a charge of first-degree murder.
Robert John Oshinski, 39, of Long Beach, killed his wife, Ashley Barbara. the morning of Jan. 9, 2022. The beating occurred in front of the couple’s three children in a camper they were living in at the time in a parking bay on Highway 90 in Long Beach.
An autopsy showed Barbara had suffered from various beatings over time and the day of her death she had sustained fractures to her hands, ribs, jaw, nose, orbital bone and spine in addition to multiple lacerations of her various organs, District Attorney Crosby Parker said in a release from his office.
One of the victim’s three children spoke about witnessing her mother’s death along with her two siblings.
“I replay that day over and over in my mind,” the 13-year-old said. “I cannot unsee my father beating my mother to death right in front of me and my siblings.”
Circuit Judge Randi Mueller sentenced Oshinski to a life sentence, saying: “This is certainly one of the worst set of facts I have heard in my time on the bench. You will have a long time to sit in prison and think about what you have done, and the damage you have done to your children Mr. Oshinski, and the only good thing I can say is that you have accepted responsibility for your actions and spared your children from having to come into court and testify against you.”
Long Beach police investigated the case and collected both the bloodied wrench and pipe that Oshinski used to beat Barbara to death before dropping her off at Memorial Hospital at Gulfport and then driving away.
Oshinski had been released from the Hancock County jail on a $10,000 bond the day before he beat Barbara to death. In that case in Hancock County, Oshinski had been charged with aggravated assault for running over a man with a 4-wheeler six years earlier. The man was Barbara’s sister’s boyfriend.
Oshinski was mad about the arrest when he returned to the couple’s 24-foot camper in the Highway 90 parking bay and beat her to death.
In previous testimony, the children recalled what they had seen.
“Daddy was hitting mommy with a blue stick,” the couple’s then 11-year-old daughter said. “Daddy was jumping on mommy.”
The blue stick was the concrete pipe.
When Barbara fell to the ground during the beating, her child said, Oshinski started jumping on her and punching her.
At one point, the child told authorities that her mother screamed at Oshinski to stop, saying , “’I can’t feel my legs. You are going to to paralyze me.’”
The beating didn’t end until Barbara lost consciousness. The couple’s oldest daughter said her father grabbed some oxygen he kept in the camper to routinely revive Barbara after beatings, but it didn’t work.
That’s when Oshinski ended up dropping Barbara off at a hospital and leaving.
On the way, one of the couple’s children attempted to perform CPR on her mom, but Oshinski told her to stop. He then instructed the child to wipe the blood from around her mother’s wounds.
A Long Beach police detective later testified that Barbara had brain matter coming out of a large cut across the length of her forehead.
In addition, she had bald spots in her hair from when it was ripped out and her eyes were blackened and swollen shut in addition to her having other broken bones and internal injuries.
“This guilty plea and life sentence is certainly a result of the hard work, dedication, and collaborative efforts of both the Gulfport and Long Beach Police departments,” Assistant District Attorney Ian Baker said. “This was a heinous murder committed in front of the couple’s three small children, and based on such, the maximum allowable sentence under the law was appropriate.”
This story was originally published March 5, 2024 at 4:12 PM.
