![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/304bc8b020b8fd3dfc9203bcb262c55c.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nA man accused of murdering his girlfriend at Mullumbimby in September last year has had the charge against him dropped.<\/p>\n
The Office of the Department of Public Prosecutions withdrew a charge of murder against 30-year-old Jai Oden-Jenkins in Lismore Local Court this morning.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Outside the court, public defender Jason Watts confirmed a post-mortem examination found Mr Oden-Jenkins’ 23-year-old girlfriend, Ashleigh Grice, died from a drug overdose.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The report stated the cause of death was “a mixed drug effect”, with methylamphetamine and Bromazolam detected in her system.\u00a0<\/p>\n
When the matter was mentioned in March, the court heard the post-mortem report finalised in December led to prosecutors not opposing bail for Mr Oden-Jenkins.<\/p>\n
At that time, prosecutors were still seeking instructions on how to proceed with the matter.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The death of Ashleigh Grice prompted an outpouring of grief in the close-knit Mullumbimby community.<\/p>\n
There was an outpouring of grief in the small town of Mullumbimby in the days after Ms Grice’s body was found inside the Mullumbimby property she shared with Mr Oden-Jenkins.<\/p>\n
Around 400 community members gathered at dusk in a local park to hold a candlelight vigil for the young woman who was described as “a beautiful soul”.<\/p>\n
Byron Shire mayor Sarah Ndiaye said the community was still feeling the loss of Ms Grice.<\/p>\n
“My heart goes out to Ashleigh’s family and friends, it’s such a tragic loss of a young life whatever the circumstances,” she said.<\/p>\n
“It’s a good reminder for all to take great care of themselves and each other.”<\/p>\n
Mr Oden-Jenkins has been on bail and living in Victoria, and did not appear in court today.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The murder charge and bail conditions are withdrawn and dismissed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A man accused of murdering his girlfriend at Mullumbimby in September last year has had the charge against…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":577956,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[283536,64,63,1108,283537,283538,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-577955","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-ashleigh-grice","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-court","12":"tag-jai-oden-jenkins","13":"tag-murder-charge-dismissed","14":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577955","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=577955"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577955\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/577956"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=577955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=577955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=577955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}