A mother testified how she came face to face with an attempted carjacker who tried to get onto her young daughter's school bus in Butler.

Heather Reibel was no ordinary victim.

“I grabbed him by the chest and his coat,” she recounted, “and threw him backward.”

Reibel's testimony came Monday at Brian J. Vlassich's preliminary hearing.

District Judge William Fullerton ordered Vlassich, 37, of Butler to stand trial on charges he tried to rob the owners of two vehicles Feb. 2 before he eventually stole an unoccupied vehicle.

At a separate hearing Monday, Fullerton held the defendant for court on charges that he tried to break into the Butler County Prison earlier the day of the alleged crime spree,

He remains in the prison on $105,000 bail.

City police allege Vlassich apparently by chance targeted the 33-year-old Reibel, of Butler, about 12:20 p.m. at Liberty and West Wayne streets. She was there waiting for her 6-year-old daughter's school bus.

She was in her car with the doors locked when an unknown man tried to open the driver's door.

“I said, 'What do you want?'” Reibel told prosecutor Richard Bosco, a county assistant district attorney. “He said, “Can I drive your car?' I told him, 'No, that's not going to happen.'”

The man then walked around the vehicle, she said, and unsuccessfully tried to open the passenger side door. She called 911.

About that time, she noticed the bus that was carrying her daughter, a kindergarten student. She said she knew the driver was a substitute.

At the bus stop, the man, later identified as Vlassich, made his next move.

So did Reibel.

The defendant allegedly tried to force his way into the bus. But Reibel immediately intervened.

“I shut the bus doors,” she said. She shoved the suspect, who ran away.

He was last seen running on South Washington Street, where 25-year-old Owen Barkley of Butler was inside his parked pickup truck.

“I was letting the truck warm up,” he testified. He was also talking to a friend on his cell phone.

He spotted the defendant, who he did not know, approach his truck and pull on the driver's door. He partially opened it before Barkley grabbed the handle and pulled it shut.

“'Hey dude, let me borrow your truck,'” Barkley remembered Vlassich tell him. “I was astonished.”

When Barkley balked, the suspect again ran away.

During brief cross-examination, Vlassich's attorney, public defender Charles Nedz, asked Reibel and Barkley the same questions.

In response, both alleged victims admitted that Nedz's client never threatened them, or put his hands on them, or displayed a weapon.

Not long after encountering the vehicle owners, Vlassich appeared outside a doctor's office in the 200 block of South Washington Street, according to police.

Cynthia Bryan, 64, of Butler, was at work at the office. She had parked her Ford Explorer nearby.

Bryan testified that shortly before 12:30 p.m. she happened to look out the window and noticed her vehicle was missing. She notified police.

She said her husband usually drove the Explorer and he apparently had left a spare set of keys in the center console.

Police put out a be-on-the-lookout advisory for the vehicle and entered it as stolen in the National Crime Information Center database.

Patrolman Kevin Novak testified that an anonymous caller identified Vlassich as the Explorer thief. But the unexpected call provided investigators with much more information.

The caller advised police that the defendant had been at the Walmart at the Butler Commons shopping plaza in Butler Township, where an ambulance later took him to Butler Memorial Hospital.

Novak said police went to the hospital and found him in the emergency department waiting room. He was taken to the police station and was interviewed.

Vlassich confessed to the entire crime spree, police said following his arrest. He also told investigators where they could find the Explorer — in a ditch near Butler Commons.

He is charged with two counts of attempted robbery of a vehicle, theft of a vehicle, receiving stolen property and attempted unauthorized school bus entry.

At Vlassich's preceding hearing, prison Capt. Clyde Moore testified that the defendant about 1:30 a.m. Feb. 2 tried to break into the front doors at the jail on South Washington Street.

He is accused of hurling a big bag of road salt and a large, standing metallic ashtray into the front glass doors in his failed bid to get inside.

The prior evening, according to testimony, Vlassich had appeared at the prison, telling officials he was there to turn himself in on a warrant. No warrant existed.

He is charged in that case with trespass, institutional vandalism and criminal mischief.