A Butler man is headed for trial on charges he threatened his roommate with a screwdriver earlier this month.

District Judge William Fullerton ordered Wayne Edwards Sr., 61, held for court on misdemeanor charges of terroristic threats and simple assault following testimony Monday at a preliminary hearing.

“He said he was going to stab me in the head with the screwdriver,” the alleged victim, 63-year-old Tina Burbank, told prosecutor Amanda Scarpo, a county assistant district attorney.

In addition to the threat Dec. 2 at their apartment on North Elm Street, the woman recounted, the defendant “nudged” her in the nose and face while swinging his hands. She was not injured in the incident.

Burbank described her relationship with Edwards as “friend/roommate.” She said the two had been rooming together for about one month when the alleged incident occurred.

She said the defendant was being “disruptive” and “calling me names” that evening.

“What was the issue with the screwdriver?” the defendant's attorney, public defender Charles Nedz, asked Burbank.

“He said if I went to sleep I wouldn't wake up, that I was already dead, and he's going to punch me in the skull with the screwdriver,” the woman replied.

She also admitted on cross examination that Edwards was not holding a screwdriver when he made the alleged threat, and that the only physical contact he made to her was the alleged “nudge” to her nose and side of her face.

However, she told Scarpo she found a screwdriver on the defendant's bed.

“Did you feel threatened, uncomfortable?” Scarpo asked Burbank.

“Oh yeah,” she said, “I was scared.”

Afterward, she recalled, she took her dog and purse, went to a friend's house and called 911.

Patrolman Myles Bizub, who answered the call, testified Burbank was “visibly shaken and frantic” when he spoke to her.

Police found the defendant “highly intoxicated” in a bedroom at the North Elm Street apartment, according to court documents.

At the end of testimony, Nedz asked Fullerton to dismiss the simple assault charge.

“There was no evidence presented that he intended (to) or caused bodily injury to the victim,” Nedz argued.

Citing the “totality of circumstances,” Scarpo countered that Burbank's testimony was sufficient to show that Edwards attempted to injure the victim.

The defendant remains in the Butler County Prison on $10,000 bond.