EagleTribune.com, North Andover, MA

Judith Guevara, 25, was not dead when he made the phone call at 11:52 p.m. She was lying on the bed facing the wall of their third-floor apartment at 92 Cross St. Her face was awash in blood. She had been choked repeatedly, police said.

The pregnant mother of two - a 1-year-old boy and a 5-year-old girl - died five hours later at Lawrence General Hospital, police Chief John Romero said. She was one month into her pregnancy.

"Don't let the baby see what I had done," Polanco told police as he was being led away from the home in handcuffs. "Don't let my baby see her."

Polanco, who also uses the name Edwin Garcia, is charged with killing Guevara. He pleaded innocent through an interpreter during his arraignment in Lawrence District Court yesterday afternoon.

"It's all my fault; I did it," Polanco told the first officers on the scene Thursday night.

"I have to be punished for my crime. I have to be punished for my sins," he said.

Lawrence District Court Judge Thomas Brennan ordered Polanco to be sent to Bridgewater State Hospital to be examined for competency and criminal responsibility.

Interviewed afterward, Polanco's court-appointed lawyer, Russell Sobelman of Lynn, said:

"He's distraught and he didn't even know his wife had died. He was too distraught for me to have a chance to talk to him. I thought he might be suicidal. There is an issue of mental health here."

"If the confession stays in, that's all you have to argue," he said.

"It's pretty gruesome if it's true."

Polanco was standing in the hallway of the six-family building, cradling the baby boy and holding the tiny hand of the girl when police arrived. It is not yet known if Polanco is the father of the children.

Polanco told police Guevara attacked him first. He was asleep when she began beating him for no apparent reason, he said.

Guevara was not breathing when medical help arrived, but they brought her back to life, using cardiopulmonary resuscitation, police said.

Police had not found Guevara's family to notify them of her death as of late last night. Romero said Polanco gave them the name of an uncle in California to notify, but when police called, the man who answered would not say whether he knew or was related to Guevara.

Neighbor Felipe Guzman, 54, said yesterday he was not surprised by the violence, but felt sad for Polanco, who he grew up with in the Dominican Republic. The two men reconnected in New York in the 1980s, and again in Lawrence five months ago when Guzman came to live downstairs from Polanco and Guevara in the red brick building near Broadway.

"It's hard for me to believe, but I knew something bad was going to happen," said Guzman, a taxi cab driver who came home after work in the wee hours yesterday to find the street cluttered with police and emergency vehicles, and a woman, whom he did not recognize, being wheeled to a waiting ambulance.

Guzman described the couple's relationship as "chaotic," noting that they fought constantly, but police were never called. Chief Romero confirmed that he was not aware of any past trouble at the address.

Guevara kept a "tight rein" on Polanco, Guzman said.

"She did not allow him to socialize with friends or even talk to them on the telephone," said Guzman, recalling a phone conversation that abruptly ended when Polanco let out a scream.

"He told me 'she just stabbed me' (in the palm of his hand)," Guzman said.

Months later he saw Polanco sporting a black eye. His friend told him he'd been injured at work, but Guzman said he did not believe him.

"I told him again and again to leave her, but he always hoped she would change," Guzman said. "This breaks my heart and I feel he was like my own brother, because we got along so well."

Polanco is scheduled to be back in court Nov. 22 for a probable cause hearing, but an indictment could be handed down by then, Sobelman said.

Staff Writer Mark Vogler contributed to this report.