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A grieving father’s anguished words in Washington have put a spotlight on a tragedy that many Americans say reflects their worst fears: a justice system that repeatedly frees dangerous repeat offenders until it’s too late.
Stephen Federico’s daughter, Logan, 22, was murdered in her sleep in May while staying overnight at a friend’s house in Columbia, South Carolina. Police say the suspect, Alexander Devonte Dickey, 30, broke into the home, shot Logan, and then went on a shopping spree with her stolen credit and debit cards.
But what has shocked and outraged many is not only the brutality of the crime, but court documents revealing Dickey’s 39 arrests, and 25 felony charges before Logan’s murder. Yet he had spent barely 600 days in jail over the past decade.
“He should have been in jail for over 140 years for all of the crimes he committed,” Federico told Fox News Digital. “He was committing 2.65 crimes a year since he was 15 years old. But nobody could figure out that he couldn’t be rehabilitated? Well, you’d have to put him in prison to see if he could be rehabilitated. Isn’t that the idea of prison?”
“There are more people … fighting for the rights of a career criminal than fighting for the right for my daughter to be safe.”
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Stephen spoke at a Congressional hearing on Monday, held by the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Federal Government Surveillance, focused on the growing issue of repeat offenders being let back onto the streets. The hearing was held in response to the murder of Ukrainian commuter Iryna Zarutska onboard a train in Charlotte, which sparked widespread outrage after it was revealed that her killer was also released numerous times before the stabbing.
“Think about your child coming home from a night out with their friends, lying down going to sleep, feeling somebody come into their room and wake them. Drag them out of bed, naked, force[ed] on her knees with her hands over her head, begging for her life,” he said Monday, choking back tears.
“You will be sick and tired of my face and my voice until this gets fixed. I will fight until my last breath for my daughter.”
The hearing turned tense when Rep. Deborah Ross, D-N.C., mistakenly referred to a photo of Logan as the Ukrainian commuter, Zarutska, prompting Stephen to correct her sharply.
“This is my daughter … Logan Federico,” he said. “How dare you not know her!”
Following the hearing, he told Fox News Digital that he hadn’t expected his congressional testimony to become so emotional.
“Honestly, it went a little different direction than I thought it was going with certain members of the committee,” he said. “I worked for days with my team developing what I really wanted to say and had some good stuff really written out. But when Ms. Ross kind of really set off a fire in me … the whole complexity of my speech went totally ad lib, to nothing but the feeling of what I had in my heart and kind of the fury I had.”
Federico said he felt dismissed when Rep. Ross confused his daughter with another victim and appeared unfamiliar with either case.
“I really felt how unimportant both Logan and Iryna were to her. I thought it was really sad. Not only did she not know who Logan was, but she didn’t do her homework, and she didn’t even know what Iryna looked like. That changed everything.”
Pushing for ‘Logan’s Law’
Now Federico says he is determined to turn his grief into action. He is calling for a federal “Logan’s Law” that would mandate communication between counties, force prosecutors to account for repeat offenders, and close loopholes that allow criminals like Dickey to slip back onto the streets.
“I’m hoping for a federal Logan’s law or Logan’s Act, combined with a lot of different things. But if you start with it federally, it goes down to the state,” he said. “Counties don’t talk. You can’t go in and arrest somebody and see that he’s got 40 crimes in two states. They only look at the crime he committed at that time. They didn’t do their homework.”
Federico said he has already received backing from South Carolina Rep. Russell Fry, who has pledged his support, and other members of Congress who offered to work with him on reforms.
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On Tuesday, South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson sent a letter to Fifth Circuit Solicitor Byron Gipson urging him to pursue capital punishment against Dickey.
Wilson argued the case carries “clear statutory aggravating factors,” including that the murder occurred during a burglary, and cited Dickey’s criminal record spanning more than a decade.
“His past history, as well as his current violent crime charges show an appropriate candidate for the ultimate punishment,” Wilson wrote in the Sept. 30 letter.
Wilson also announced that his office has assigned Melody Brown, a senior attorney in the Attorney General’s Capital & Collateral Litigation Section, to the Fifth Circuit Solicitor’s Office to conduct a comprehensive review of the case.
READ THE LETTER – APP USERS, CLICK HERE
The attorney general gave Gipson until Oct. 10 to declare his intentions, warning that if the solicitor was “unable to proceed,” the attorney general’s office was prepared to take over. Gipson fired back in an Oct. 1 response, calling Wilson’s deadline “reckless, irresponsible and unethical.”
“To make such a determination a mere four months into the case, without investing the due diligence necessary to conduct a thorough analysis of all facets of the evidence, would set a dangerous precedent,” Gipson wrote.
Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., pushed back on Friday, writing on X: “Here’s the deal: the state’s top law enforcement officer and chief prosecutor CANNOT politicize a case. And by doing so, Alan Wilson forfeits the state’s right to pursue the death penalty in Logan Federico’s case because of prejudice. That’s what he’s done. It’s unforgivable.”
“Logan and her family deserve justice,” she said.
Mace wrote a letter on Friday to Attorney General Pam Bondi and U.S. Attorney for the District of South Carolina Bryan Stirling asking for the Department of Justice to intervene and take over Federico’s case.
Fox News Digital reached out to Mace’s office and the Department of Justice for comment.
Building a movement of grieving families
Federico emphasized that his family is not alone, and he plans to organize other families into a coalition demanding change.
“There are so many of us. There are so many parents hurting right now that we’re going to form a band, and we’re going to fight. Because we have to.”
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He admitted that part of his drive comes from a sense of personal guilt.
“Nothing will change the fact that I think I failed her,” Federico said. “But I think what I’m doing now is helping … maybe Logan will forgive me.”
‘They have no idea what’s coming’
Logan, who stood just 5’3″ and weighed 115 pounds, was shot and killed in the off-campus housing near the University of South Carolina campus. Stephen pointed blame at a justice system that, in his eyes, failed his daughter and many others. For Federico, the fight is only beginning. He says his daughter’s death has awakened him to a mission larger than his own family’s grief.
“If we get to the bottom of why Alexander Dickey was out on the street, I’m going to turn the state of South Carolina on its head,” he vowed. “They have no idea what’s coming their way.”
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