ELLSWORTH – A Hancock County Superior Court justice denied bail for a Bangor man accused of murder and kept sealed a court document associated with the man’s arrest.

At a hearing on Thursday, Justice Kevin Cuddy denied a bail request for John J. Turner, who has been charged with the July 8 murder of 27-year-old Tad Howard of Ellsworth.

Turner, 34, of Bangor will remain at Hancock County Jail, where he has been held since his arrest on July 20 at Acadia Hospital in Bangor.

Jeffrey Toothaker of Ellsworth, Turner’s attorney, said it didn’t make sense to put together a strong argument for bail because he didn’t think his client would be able to come up with the money anyway.

However, because Toothaker did not push for bail, Assistant Attorney General Andrew Benson was not required to demonstrate probable cause.

That fact, coupled with Cuddy’s decision to keep the affidavit sealed, means it’s likely that any insight into Turner’s possible motivation will remain a mystery, at least for another month.

“There’s really not much I can say,” Benson said after Thursday’s court hearing. “In many cases, the preliminary arrest affidavit is sealed at the request of the judge, so this is not that uncommon. But I would never comment on the facts of the case.”

Turner is expected to be indicted by the Hancock County grand jury in early August and then arraigned later that month. Toothaker predicted that the judge would unseal the affidavit at the arraignment.

Cuddy was appointed in March to replace outgoing Justice Andrew Mead, now a member of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court.

Despite the judge’s ruling, some details about the night of July 8 emerged in a document filed this week.

A request by the attorney general’s office to obtain Turner’s phone records revealed that Turner and Howard were together the night before Howard died.

The court document linked the two men through Howard’s cell phone and a piece of paper with numbers found at the murder scene.

The document also claimed that Turner told police he “blacked out” during a period of time with Howard. Turner said when he came to, he was alone.

Meanwhile, Howard’s body was found the next day in a ditch in the rural Hancock County town of Amherst, the victim of multiple gunshot wounds to the head.

Turner has been on suicide watch at Hancock County Jail since he first was arrested last Friday, but Toothaker said his client is doing better this week.

Like Benson, Toothaker declined to comment on the details of the case but he said the information contained in the attorney general’s office request was just the tip of the iceberg.