How a ‘career criminal’ with 40 arrests was left free to murder an aspiring teacher
Logan Federico (left) was allegedly shot dead by Alexander Dickey in a random attack in South Carolina in MayLogan Federico was just 22-years-old when she was shot dead, allegedly by a career criminal in a random attack in South Carolina in May.
The man accused of her murder, 30-year-old Alexander Dickey, has been characterised by authorities as a “true convict”.
Although he was reportedly arrested dozens of times, a combination of lenient justice policies and incompetence left him free to walk the streets.
Three months later, Iryna Zarutska, who had fled the war in her native Ukraine, was stabbed to death on public transport in neighbouring North Carolina.
Both women, critics say, are dead because of a “failed justice system” resulting from a soft-on-crime approach that prioritises violent criminals over their victims.
Logan Federico was just 22-years-old when she was shot deadOn the night of Friday May 2, Federico had been enjoying a night out with friends, before heading back to a rented home on the 2700 block of Cypress Street, Columbia some time before 3am.
Around the same time, authorities claim, Dickey was breaking into houses in the area, stealing a wallet, debit and credit cards, keys to a vehicle and a gun.
It’s hard to believe that Federico could have posed much of a threat to her attacker, at 5ft 3 and weighing around 115 pounds.
Local police say Dickey entered the room where Logan was lying in bed and shot her in the chest, before escaping in the stolen vehicle.
“Think about your child coming home from a night out with friends, lying down, going to sleep, feeling somebody come into the room... and wake them,” Steve Federico, her father, said recently.
“Drag her out of her bed. Naked. Forced on her knees with her hands over her head. Begging for her life. Begging for her hero, her father. Me. That couldn’t be there.”
Mr Federico points to a picture of his daughter during his testimony - Nell Redmond/Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.Dickey is then said to have embarked on a shopping spree using the stolen debit and credit cards, before he was eventually tracked down by authorities. He had to be taken to hospital after setting fire to the house he was hiding out in, police said.
Federico’s body was discovered shortly after 11am on Saturday May 3.
Since May, Mr Federico had been campaigning to raise awareness about how soft-on-crime policies had allowed his daughter’s killer to roam free.
“He should have been in jail for over 140 years for all the crimes he committed,” he said at a recent hearing with the local politicians.
“You know how much time he spent in prison? A little over 600 days in 10 years.”
Dickey had been arrested for 39 offences over more than a decade of criminal activity, of which 25 were felonies, according to local media.
Yet despite the lengthy rap sheet, he was repeatedly able to avoid jail time after being sentenced to probation at least five times.
In 2023, North Carolina’s WIS-TV reported he was prosecuted for burglary as a first offence, even though it was his third burglary conviction. Authorities have admitted it was a result of a mix-up.
Pleading guilty to third-degree burglary, Dickey was sentenced to five years but served just 411 days behind bars with credit for time served.
“What happened to Logan Federico is a clear illustration of our failed justice system,” Pamela Evette, South Carolina’s lieutenant governor, said on social media.
“There is no reason Alexander Devante Dickey, a man with 39 arrests and 25 felonies, shouldn’t have been behind bars.”
Alexander Dickey had been arrested for 39 offences over more than a decade of criminal activity - Lexington SC Detention CenterWhen Steve Federico addressed a hearing of politicians in North Carolina on Monday, his daughter’s home state, his voice was trembling. It was hard to tell whether it was grief or anger, but was likely a combination of the two.
“What you all did is you woke up a beast and you p—d off the wrong daddy,” he said, vowing to “fight until my last breath for my daughter”.
“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,” he said in his opening remarks.
“There is only one thing that would have kept my daughter alive and that is putting a career criminal in prison.”
At one point in the hearing, a lawmaker confused Federico with Iryna Zarutska, who was allegedly killed in August by Decarlos Brown Jr, who had previously been arrested 14 times and was out on cashless bail.
Mr Federico had to correct the lawmaker, but it underscored the essential point that both have become symbols of a justice system that critics believe is failing victims.
“The tragic truth revealed today is that Iryna is just one of countless victims of violent crime,” Mark Harris, a North Carolina Republican congressman, told the Daily Caller.
“The fact my… Democrat colleague mixed up our witness Steve Federico’s daughter Logan with Iryna says it all: there are too many victims of pro-crime Democrat policies for them to keep track.”
Zarutska’s murder caused a national outcry when footage emerged of her being stabbed from behind on a train in Charlotte, North Carolina as she travelled home from work.
Iryna Zarutska was stabbed multiple times in the neckDonald Trump has labelled Brown, who has been charged but not convicted of her murder, an “animal” who should be executed.
Just a few years since the “defund the police” movement swept across the US, the shift towards softer crime enforcement seems to have halted.
The US president in August mobilised the National Guard in Washington, DC to stop what he has called a rising tide of crime overtaking the city, which he has partly blamed on the widespread use of cashless bail.
He has also deployed or pledged to deploy federal agents in other cities including Memphis, Chicago and Portland among others.
And North Carolina’s legislature this week approved a criminal justice package, named “Iryna’s Law” after Zarutska, limiting bail conditions for repeat and violent offenders.
Both men accused of murdering Federico and Zarutska are behind bars and, before their trials, have pled not guilty and been denied bail.
But for their alleged victims it is too little, and far too late.