Lorena Rodrigues took the stand Wednesday to describe her terrifying experience when a Vallejo man demanded money and her car keys at the Target store parking lot in South Napa Marketplace last month.

After hearing her testimony and other evidence, Napa County Superior Court Judge Stephen Kroyer held Jeremiah McFarland, 19, to answer to felony charges of attempted carjacking and attempted robbery, as well as a special allegation of use of deadly force.

A Good Samaritan, Phillip Scott Nixon, who noticed the victim was in trouble and helped police catch McFarland, also testified Wednesday.

Around 5 p.m., Jan. 22, Rodrigues strapped her two babies, 9 months and 21 months, into their car seats in her Ford Explorer and headed to Target to buy diapers.

Through a Spanish court interpreter, Rodrigues testified that after parking, she got out of the sport utility vehicle and saw a suspicious man.

“He grabbed me by my sweater at the side of my vehicle and said, ‘Give me your keys.’ I was screaming, ‘My babies are in the car,’’ Rodrigues said.

“Then suddenly he had a gun. I was so frightened. I kept saying, ‘My babies are in the car.’”

Under questioning from Napa County Deputy District Attorney Gary Van Camp, Rodrigues said she was looking for someone to help her. She testified a man (Nixon) saw her and asked if she needed help ... “If I was all right.”

By this time McFarland had run away empty-handed.

Van Camp asked the victim how long before the defendant ran away. “I don’t know, but it seemed like an eternity,” she replied. “I was so scared. He had a gun and my babies were right there.”

Napa County Deputy Public Defender Jess Raphael asked Rodrigues if McFarland spoke to her in Spanish, to which she answered no.

He asked the victim how she knew what McFarland was saying if she didn’t speak English.

Rodrigues, who speaks a little English, answered that she understood he was demanding her money and keys.

Raphael also argued that the gun was not a firearm, but a BB gun, which later was deemed to be a pellet gun.

Kroyer, who said he was not an expert in firearms, asked to see the gun.

“It looks like a firearm to me that shoots bullets,” he said.

The victim testified her money and keys were in her pockets. “And he never tried to reach in and take anything from your pockets?” Raphael asked.

“No,” Rodrigues replied.

Nixon testified he was driving from the Target parking lot when he first saw McFarland.

“He was on foot, wandering around, looking into cars. He had no direction,” Nixon testified.

He said he saw McFarland pin Rodrigues against the side of the car.

“She looked at me with panic on her face. I knew there was trouble,” Nixon testified. “When I got there Mr. McFarland was walking away. When I went to Mrs. Rodrigues, she gestured a gun with her hand and pointed at him. I thought she had been robbed. I followed him in my pickup.”

Nixon said he called 911 twice and was put on hold both times. Meanwhile a California Highway Patrol car drove through the parking lot nearby and Nixon flagged down the CHP officer.

“I ran back to see where Mr. McFarland was. I didn’t want to lose sight of him. I was afraid he would do the same thing to someone (else) if he wasn’t caught,” Nixon testified.

Customers at the Chevron gas station on Imola and Soscol avenues told Nixon they saw McFarland run across Imola Avenue and into the thicket across the street, near Napa Valley College.

Nixon ran across the Imola and spotted McFarland on a dirt path. Police soon joined Nixon. They chased McFarland, who wound up boxed in when the path ended at a thick patch of blackberry bushes and he was taken into custody.

McFarland had ditched the gun, but it was later retrieved by a sheriff’s K-9 unit in a flower bed near the Chevron station. He is set to be arraigned Feb. 14.