BELFAST — The 16-year-old son of a Troy man stabbed to death March 7 made his initial court appearance Friday on a murder charge.

Colby Hodgdon, accused of killing his 49-year-old father, Steven Hodgdon, entered no plea in Belfast District Court before Judge Patricia Worth. The youth will be held without bail until the case is reviewed by a juvenile community corrections officer to determine whether he should be released and, if so, in whose custody.

Worth appointed defense attorneys Aaron Fethke of Searsport and John Martin of Skowhegan to represent the teen on the murder charge. Martin said he would file a motion requesting a competency evaluation.

Assistant Attorney General Leane Zainea said she wanted the court to wait until after the juvenile corrections officer makes a recommendation before the court rules on whether Hodgdon can be released into anyone’s custody.

Worth ordered all paperwork filed in the case be sealed until after the competency evaluation is completed. The defense attorneys and Zainea said they could not comment on the case because it involves a juvenile.

The youth was brought in with shackles, but Worth ordered his handcuffs to be removed during the hearing. The teen said he understood the charge of intentional and knowing murder. He was wearing a dark blue Patriots hoodie over his jail outfit.

The boy’s mother, identified only as Ms. Roy in the courtroom, sat in the row right behind her son during the brief 10 minute hearing. She told the judge she would be filing paperwork with the state’s financial screener to have the state pay for her son’s attorneys.

The teenager did not interact with his mother during the hearing, but it appeared they were in a conference room together just outside the courtroom for nearly a half-hour before the hearing began.

Hodgdon was taken into custody in Lewiston on Wednesday.

Police were called to Steven Hodgdon’s Rutland Road home in Troy at about 2:30 a.m. March 7. The elder Hodgdon died from a stab wound to the chest, according to the Maine medical examiner’s office, and the death was ruled a homicide.

Police have not said who called them that morning or what the nature of the call was. The man lived at the home with his teenage son, but police have not said whether the son was home when officers arrived.

McCausland said shortly after the murder was reported that the son had gone to live with relatives.

He said Wednesday that investigators conducted many interviews, reviewed evidence from the state police crime lab and consulted with the attorney general and medical examiner’s offices over the past month before making the arrest.