Father Slams Congress Demands Action After Daughter’s Shocking Murder (Video)

A North Carolina father ripped into lawmakers this week, demanding answers after his 22-year-old daughter was murdered by a man with a staggering criminal record. The fiery testimony came during a congressional field hearing in Charlotte, a city still shaken by another brutal killing on its light rail system just weeks ago.

Stephen Federico told House Judiciary Committee members that his daughter Logan’s accused killer, Alexander Dickey, should never have been on the streets.

Dickey, prosecutors say, had nearly 40 charges on his record — including burglaries that normally carry a 15-year minimum sentence. But in 2023, he struck a plea deal that treated him as a “first-time offender.”

“Stop protecting the people that keep taking our children from us, please,” Federico pleaded. “I will fight until my last breath for my daughter.”

Logan was visiting friends near the University of South Carolina in Columbia when Dickey allegedly broke in, robbed her, and shot her in the chest. Afterward, he reportedly used her debit card to buy items at a local store.

“When they saw his face on the video, they didn’t even need to check,” Federico said. “He’d been arrested so many times, they already knew him.”

The Charlotte hearing was scheduled in the wake of another crime that stunned the state — the August stabbing death of 23-year-old Iryna Zarutska, killed in front of passengers on the city’s light rail.

Her accused killer, Decarlos Brown Jr., had a rap sheet stretching back a decade. He’d served prison time for armed robbery and was waiting on a mental health evaluation when he allegedly attacked Zarutska. Earlier this year, he was released after a misdemeanor charge for abusing the 911 call line.

“Sadly, it’s all too common for a criminal to be let off easy by a judge only to commit an even worse crime,” Rep. Mark Harris, R-N.C., said during the hearing.

Alongside Federico sat Mia Alderman, whose granddaughter Mary Collins was savagely murdered in 2020. Collins, just 20, was found stuffed inside a mattress, stabbed more than 100 times.

Five years later, Alderman said, justice is still elusive. One defendant, America Diehl, has repeatedly violated release conditions while awaiting trial.

“Five years is not justice. Five years is torment,” Alderman told lawmakers. “Justice delayed is justice denied, and Mary is not the only victim. The same system that failed Mary failed Iryna.”

Republican members of the committee pointed to these tragedies as proof that the justice system is broken. They argued that soft sentencing, plea bargains, and backlogged courts allow dangerous repeat offenders to cycle back into neighborhoods.

Democrats, while condemning the violence, have countered in past debates that systemic issues like overcrowded prisons, underfunded courts, and untreated mental illness also drive the crisis.

But for families like Federico’s, the arguments are personal — and raw.

“Logan was innocent,” her father said. “She had her whole life ahead of her. And because the system failed, I’ll never see my daughter again.”