ELLSWORTH – A Southwest Harbor woman charged with murder beat an elderly woman to death with a small ceramic gargoyle after a dispute over money, according to court documents released Tuesday.

Michelle Mills, 37, was employed by Jacqueline “Jill” Evans in the months leading up to the 83-year-old woman’s gruesome death in late January, but had been fired about a week before.

On Jan. 11, the two women had a heated phone argument during which Mills claimed Evans owed her money, the affidavit states.

Nine days later, Evans was found in her Southwest Harbor home, unconscious from severe head trauma and surrounded by a pool of blood and broken pieces of a ceramic gargoyle statue. She died two days later at a hospital in Bangor.

Mills has been held at Hancock County Jail in Ellsworth since her arrest last Thursday, one day after a grand jury secretly indicted her for murder.

The woman appeared in court Friday and pleaded not guilty. She was ordered held without bail until a hearing can be held to determine whether bail will be set.

Assistant Attorney General Andrew Benson said Tuesday that Mills’ attorney, Jeffrey Silverstein of Bangor, requested that the hearing be continued on a day-to-day basis.

“The defense has asked to waive the hearing, so it’s day to day at this point,” Benson said. “If they decide they want one, they’ll contact us. We don’t care if there’s never a bail hearing.”

Silverstein did not return a call Tuesday for comment.

Since Evans’ slaying on Jan. 20, few details have surfaced about the nature of her death or her relationship to Mills. However, an affidavit filed by Maine State Police Detective Anna Fizell in early February and released Tuesday helped shed light on their connection as well as a possible motive.

“That there was no sign of forced entry, no rifling through the victim’s belongings, [and] money being left on the dresser, all leads to the conclusion that Jacqueline Evans knew her attacker and let her in, and that her attacker was motivated by anger not theft,” Fizell wrote.

Mills had known Evans at least since last November, when Evans reportedly hired Mills to serve as a caretaker for Evans’ friend Dari Burke, according to the document.

Burke told police that Evans paid Mills $11,000 from Thanksgiving to the end of 2005, but that Mills and Evans argued over money in early January. Mills later told police that Evans had promised her another $11,000 after the first of the year.

After a phone call between Mills and Evans on Jan. 11, Evans no longer wanted to deal with Mills, according to the affidavit. Burke fired Mills the same day.

Evans, who seldom left her Alder Lane home in Southwest Harbor, was found unconscious by police on Jan. 20. They were called by Anne Welles, the woman’s friend and caretaker, after Welles went to Evans’ home and became suspicious when her friend didn’t answer the door.

The elderly woman was flown by helicopter to Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor, where she died two days later.

Even before Evans died, Mills was interviewed after police learned of the connection between the two women. Mills confirmed that she had been hired by Evans, but was reluctant to talk, the document says.

Maine State Police detectives classified the case a homicide the day after Evans died. The State Medical Examiner’s Office indicated that the woman suffered several hard impact wounds to the head.

After Evans’ death, detectives once again approached Mills, who this time told police that she did not want to proceed without a lawyer present. She hired Silverstein on Jan. 24.

During the investigation, detectives found broken ceramic feet that matched those on a ceramic gargoyle statue in Evans’ kitchen. A photograph at the woman’s home showed that she had two gargoyle statues in the kitchen, but only one was present when her body was found.

While pieces of the second statue were left at the scene, the actual statue and presumptive weapon wasn’t found until a few days later by police detectives at a landscaping business in Southwest Harbor.

Police obtained a warrant on Jan. 26 to search Mills’ apartment on Main Street in Southwest Harbor along with a 2000 Ford Focus that she was known to be driving, registered to her ex-husband.

As a result of the search warrant, detectives seized a shirt, two bedsheets and a note from the apartment and swabbed Mills’ vehicle several times for potential forensic evidence. One of those swabs was tested and determined to match Evans’ DNA, according to the affidavit.

Police obtained another warrant on Feb. 2 requesting fingerprints and a blood sample from Mills along with any shoes she might have worn. A blood splatter specialist who surveyed the murder scene indicated that Evans’ assailant was physically close to her, and it was possible the assailant had stepped in blood, the document stated.

Detectives seized approximately 20 pairs of shoes from Mills’ apartment, although it wasn’t clear whether they turned up any further evidence.

Benson said that even though Mills was on police radar early in the investigation, there was no rush to charge the woman with murder.

“Ultimately, we’re not looking for an indictment, we’re looking to get a conviction,” Benson said. “More information has come out since the search warrants allowing us to fill in additional gaps.”

While Benson didn’t comment further on those gaps, he said his office wanted to be confident it had a solid case before moving forward with an indictment.