Grieving North Carolina father torches soft-on-crime policies during congressional hearing

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.

Stephen Federico recounts the moment he learned his daughter, Logan, had been shot and killed while visiting friends at USC in Columbia, South Carolina. (Adam Eugene Willis/Fox News Digital)

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…