A construction worker was jailed without bail yesterday after police said he confessed to the slaying of an actress left hanging from a shower rod in the bathroom of a Manhattan apartment.

Under questioning, Diego Pillco admitted killing Adrienne Shelly during an angry exchange over noisy renovations inside a Greenwich Village apartment building, authorities said yesterday.

The Ecuadorean immigrant “said he fought with the victim, tied a sheet around her neck and dragged her to the bathroom and hung her from the shower rod,” an assistant district attorney, Marit Delozier, said at an arraignment. “This is an exceptionally egregious case.”

Mr. Pillco, 19, was ordered held without bail pending a hearing scheduled for tomorrow in state Supreme Court.

Mr. Pillco did not speak at his arraignment but had a Spanish interpreter telling him what was happening in the proceedings. His attorney, Thomas Klein, said he would file motions in Mr. Pillco’s case later.

The body of Shelly, whose birth name was Adrienne Levine, was found November 1 in a fourth-floor apartment she used as an office. Police were hesitant to label the case a suicide, observing that no note was found and that sneaker prints that did not match Shelly’s shoes were recovered from a toilet seat.

A witness later told investigators that Mr. Pillco had been working in an apartment located directly below Shelly. After locating the suspect in Brooklyn, they found sneakers that appeared to match the footprints, police said.

Police said that during questioning the suspect gave this account:

When Shelly confronted him over noise at a third-floor apartment, he responded by throwing a hammer. She stormed out, saying she was going to call the police.

Mr. Pillco followed, pleading with her not to report him and grabbing her as she tried to enter her apartment. She tried to slap him away, and he responded by punching her in the head — a blow he said killed her.

The suspect claimed he hanged the body in the bathroom to cover his tracks and make the slaying look like a suicide.

But the prosecutor said there were no signs of serious head trauma.

“This woman did not die from a strike to the head,” she said. “The (medical examiner) has made it crystal clear that the victim died from compression to the neck.”

Shelly, 40, who was born in Queens and grew up on Long Island, was best known for her roles in the Hal Hartley films “The Unbelievable Truth,” in which she played Audry Hugo in 1989, and “Trust,” in which she starred as Maria Coughlin in 1990. She appeared last year as Jerry in “Factotum” with Matt Dillon.

She worked steadily during her career in film, theater and television but later turned to writing and directing, making her directorial debut with “Sudden Manhattan” in 1996. She recently wrote and directed the film “Waitress,” starring Keri Russell and Nathan Fillion.