Grieving dad torches lawmakers for soft crime policies that freed repeat offender who murdered his daughter
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A North Carolina father called for stricter penalties for criminals during a congressional hearing on Monday, saying that, similar to the case of the Charlotte light rail attack, his daughter was killed at the hands of a repeat offender.
Stephen Federico said his daughter Logan’s alleged murderer had more than two dozen felonies on his record in South Carolina before he broke into a house in Columbia, where the 22-year-old woman was visiting with friends, and robbed her and shot her in the chest.
“I will fight until my last breath for my daughter,” Federico told lawmakers during his opening remarks. “You need to fight for the rest of our children, the rest of the innocents, and stop protecting the people that keep taking them from us, please.”
Federico joined Mia Alderman, whose granddaughter was murdered in 2020, to speak out during a House Judiciary Committee hearing in Charlotte against a judicial system that they say failed their families.
CONGRESS TO HOLD CRIME HEARING IN CHARLOTTE FOLLOWING DEADLY LIGHT RAIL ATTACK
The committee held the remote hearing in North Carolina’s most urban region to highlight what lawmakers say is a need for criminal justice reform. The event comes after a repeat offender was caught on surveillance video last month stabbing Iryna Zarutska, 23, to death after she sat in front of the man on the Charlotte light rail.
Logan Federico’s suspected killer, Alexander Dickey, had been arrested several times for first-degree burglary, which carries a minimum 15-year sentence, when he pleaded guilty in 2023 to a lower charge as a first-time offender.
The solicitor’s office in South Carolina that handled Dickey’s last arrest later said it sought a sentencing based on a rap sheet that was incomplete because Dickey’s fingerprints were not properly recorded, according to a local report and a Fox News Digital analysis.
Stephen Federico said in total, Dickey had 39 charges on his record before he went on a burglary spree in May 2025, shot and killed his daughter, and then went to a store and used her debit card and other stolen cards. He was arrested the following day.
“When they saw his face on the video, they didn’t have to do a check. He was arrested so many times they knew who he was,” Stephen Federico said.
In Zarutska’s case, suspect Decarlos Brown Jr. had a criminal record that spanned ten years and previously served prison time for robbery with a dangerous weapon.
Brown had also been diagnosed with schizophrenia and, according to the New York Times, had been awaiting an evaluation for his mental competence at the time of Zarutska’s murder. Before that, a magistrate judge released Brown in January after he was charged with a misdemeanor for abusing the 9-1-1 call line.
“Sadly, it’s all too common for a criminal to be let off easy by a judge only to have him turn around and commit an even worse crime,” said Rep. Mark Harris, R-N.C., who represents part of Charlotte.
Alderman, meanwhile, said prosecutions for those responsible for murdering her granddaughter, 20-year-old Mary Collins, remain ongoing. Collins was found days after her death wrapped in plastic in a mattress with more than 100 stab wounds.
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“Five years is not justice. Five years is torment,” Alderman said, adding that one of the four people arrested, America Diehl, has been violating her release conditions. Three others have been arrested and charged, one of whom was out on bond for two years.
“Justice delayed is justice denied, and time is stealing our justice with the backlogged court system for murder trials, and Mary is not the only victim. … The same system that failed Mary failed Iryna,” Alderman said.