Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - 'Career Criminal' Murdered College Student in Home Invasion: Cops

Episode Date: July 11, 2025

Logan Federico was a beautiful 22-year-old who hoped to become a teacher and a mother. In May, she was visiting friends in Columbia, South Carolina when a man broke into the home where she was staying and shot her. Alexander Dickey is accused of the burglary and killing Logan. Now questions have been raised about why Dickey was out on the street since he had several arrests for prior burglaries. Law&Crime's Angenette Levy talks with Logan's father in this episode of Crime Fix — a daily show covering the biggest stories in crime.Host:Angenette Levy  https://twitter.com/Angenette5Guests:Steve FedericoJenn Wood https://x.com/IndyJenn_Producer:Jordan ChaconCRIME FIX PRODUCTION:Head of Social Media, YouTube - Bobby SzokeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinVideo Editing - Daniel CamachoGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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The father of Logan Federico, a woman shot and killed during a home invasion burglary in South Carolina, is demanding answers. He says Logan's murderer should have been in prison because of his long rap sheet. I look at the disturbing case. I'm Anjana Levy, and this is Crime Fix. We're going to talk about Logan Federico today, and I'm going to talk with her father, Steve. Her case is tragic, and it's going to make you incredibly angry. But first, I want to tell you about something for all of our viewers who love body camera videos and police content. Highlights from On Patrol Live are coming to YouTube.

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You can find the channel link in the description. Now I wanna switch gears and get back to Logan Federico. Logan was a beautiful young woman from North Carolina. She had dreams of becoming a teacher. She loved children and she wanted to one day be a mom. But all of that was stolen from her on May 3rd in Columbia, South Carolina. Logan had gone to Columbia to visit her friends. She was in a home with her friends when police say a man named Alexander Dickey was on a crime spree.

That night, police said Dickey had stolen a car. He'd broken into a house before breaking into the home where Logan was to steal. And he shot Logan and killed her. Dickey is now charged with murdering Logan. But there are many, many questions about why Alexander Dickey was even out on the street in the first place. He has a long rap sheet, 39 arrests, including several for burglary dating back to 2014. He got probation in that case.

WIS 10 TV reporter Cynthia Beasley actually first discovered missteps with Dickey. Dickey was charged in 2015, 2015 the next year with burglary and one of those charges was dropped and he pleaded guilty to first-defense third degree burglary despite pleading guilty months earlier in another case. Then in 2023, Dickie was arrested for burglary again. Solicitor Rick Hubbard's office said in a statement, solicitor proceeded on the burglary third as a first offense. There was no sentencing negotiations on this charge. Dickie was facing a potential sentence of up to five years. Sentencing was in the judge's discretion.

I want to bring in Jen Wood. She works with Fitz News in South Carolina. So Jen, this crime is horrific. And I'm still trying to wrap my head around how this happened and it sounds like Alexander Dickey likely should have been probably in prison when this happened. Yeah I mean his criminal history was extensive it was it's you know when I first pulled it up I remember thinking immediately what why is this person why was he even out why, how could this have even happened?

And then, you know, you start looking deeper into that and, you know, there's some systemic failures, I think, that could have fixed this, who could have prevented it. It's so sad. And it sounds like there's some finger pointing going on down in South Carolina, because some

fingerprints are in arrest, wasn't reported to one agency. And so the extent of his record wasn't known to one of the solicitors. I mean, it sounds like a hot mess. Yeah. I mean, so there had been prior arrest in Lexington County where they put him in jail. They went to prosecute him. And as part of the process, what they do is they send those fingerprints over to the South Carolina Law

Enforcement Division. And that is how it gets added to their official record, which they call their catch report. Those fingerprints are what prompt them to add these additional arrests to his record. And those records are what the solicitors or prosecutors in South Carolina utilize as they're going into the prosecution.

So when they are setting up plea deals or choosing which charges are most applicable to that individual, they pull that sled catch report. So when he was charged in, I believe it was 2014, in 2019 with burglary charges, they were charged as a first offense, which comes with a lesser punishment. And they didn't know about any of these subsequent offenses, and there are plea deals involved. So it really, to me, seems, you know, where it seems like there's

some checks and balances missing between the systems. Most definitely. And this just should never have happened. It's absolutely horrific. I'm assuming you'll be kind of looking into this a little further. Yes, absolutely. We'll be digging into, you know, where those failures happened, at what point, you know, did they happen and how do we ensure that this never happens again? You know, everybody's pointing fingers right now, but let's figure out, let's, instead of pointing fingers, let's figure out what we can do to ensure that this doesn't happen again.

No doubt. Jen Wood of Fitznews, thank you so much. Thanks, Ann Jeanette. Now, all of this raises many, many questions. Sled has said the burglary case from 2014 wasn't on Dickie's rap sheet because they never received his fingerprints on that case, which triggers the agency updating the file. I'd like to bring in Steve Federico. He is Logan Federico's father.

And Steve, thank you so much for coming on. First of all, how are you doing? I just can't even imagine being in your shoes. I'm a mom and this is not the way things are supposed to go. You're not supposed to lose your children. Yeah. I'm doing horrible to be honest with you. I'm not gonna lie.

I mean, you know, you have to find some strength, but at the end of the day, my life, my family's life, Melissa's and Jacob's, they're never going to be the same. I'm always going to have a void in my heart, asking the questions, what if, asking what would she become? We know what her goal was, what kind of mother would she have been? What kind of mother would she have been? You know what she would have looked like Walking down the aisle

Yeah, you know my wife Looking forward to help her making those wedding decisions You know me you're proving of a future husband. You know I don't get to do any of that. I Don't get to do any of that. My son doesn't get to be a blood uncle. You know, there's so much more to this than I think people really can fathom and think about until you really have a loss like this. It's traumatic. It's so significant, such a life change.

And I'm so sorry, and no family and no parent should have to go through this. Your daughter was just beautiful and she looked so lovely. She had dreams of being a teacher from everything I've read. Can you tell me a little bit about that? Yeah, you know, it was about it was it was last summer We have some great neighbors surrounding bias which have been just wonderful through this but there's two little girls next door that

Needed to be watched every day all day Lauren last summer and Logan was asked to do it. She did it and It really flipped a switch in her. It really helped her decide that she wanted to be around children, and she wanted to make a difference in their lives, and that was the goal,

and ever since that moment, started hitting the books really hard, getting her schoolwork really caught up, getting done, just really found tunnel vision for a path in her life that she really wanted to, she finally found something she wanted to do. Back in May, she went down to South Carolina. And it's my understanding, this was just a weekend trip. Yeah, well, she was supposed, actually, what's horrible about this, she wasn't even supposed

to be there that night. She was supposed to go down Thursday night, but a guy that she was dating got stuck in Charleston or something, so they switched the nights to Friday, which she would have been home Friday afternoon to go to work. That's what's really horrible. But she went down to the University of South Carolina often. She had a great group of girlfriends down there, and obviously she was dating a guy down there, but they were just a really good group. But Logan did this a lot and she just didn't do it for University of South Carolina.

She went to Clemson, she had a friend there at Clemson, she went to UNC Charlotte, she went down to Charleston to visit her friends that she made that graduated from USC. Her hope and dream was to go to the College of Charleston to finish her schooling to be a teacher. But Logan was a traveling bug. She wanted to go everywhere. She wanted to see her friends. And she met some really good people. We called them Logan's crew. We have a text going on around about it and we all stay in contact. They're just a great group

of young people. Tell me about when you get this call. I mean, did somebody from the Columbia Police Department call you or? No, no, actually, it's a little bit more tragic than that. My wife was home. I was out with my friends on the golf course. My wife was putting something in the oven for lunch. She just got home from shopping and saw two officers walk across the front window

and opened the door. We knew where Jacob was, he was seven minutes away at a friend's house, we can tell by like 360. And she opened the door and she just said, is it Logan? And they said, man, yeah, you need to sit down. And I got a phone call from Alyssa, I missed it. Then called her back and she was obviously hysterical and I had to pull out of her what had happened just because I just had to know.

And obviously rushed home. I was generally about 20 minutes away, the traffic was so bad it took me about 40 minutes to get home. But yeah, it was horrible, absolutely horrible. Steve, your daughter was a truly innocent victim. There's zero connection between her and this this Dickie, the guy that's charged with this. You know, that has to make it even harder, especially learning about his rap sheet and the fact that he has been arrested so many times. Oh, you know, when we first got the phone call, I think when kids are, your kids are a certain age, maybe an accident, car accident,

or maybe something happened down there when she was partying and somebody slipped or something, or maybe just something else happened, but you never think you're gonna get get a phone call and say your child was murdered. I mean, now I can officially say I am the parent, the father of a murdered child. The thing about what is scary is how she was so accessible to him. Okay? And how he was accessible to a weapon,

how he was accessible to getting in the house, but just plain how he was on the street after 39 arrests and 25 felonies. And the fingerprint thing has a lot to do with it, but to be honest with you and the sheriff from Lexington County has made this statement. His rap sheet was available to anyone and everyone that was involved with Alexander Dickie. That's the part that gets us all. This was so preventable.

It was absolutely 100% preventable. But I'll tell you this. What nobody realizes is this. Back in 2013, I guess, or a little over a decade ago, Lexington County determined the lifespan of my daughter, our daughter, and might as well have just written her obituary. Just wishing I would have known that. Yeah, talk to me about what you mean by that. Well, think about it.

I mean, you know, Logan, it was determined Logan was going to be gone at age 22. And they determined that by letting this career criminal out on the street. It was just a matter of time. They wrote her future. There's been reporting out there that his fingerprints weren't or his arrests, some of the arrests were not reported to SLED. I mean, I'm kind of confounded by this. It's unbelievable to me that this guy probably should have still been in prison and he's roaming around out on the

streets. To commit more crimes. Correct. So how did you learn about this? Well, Cynthia Beasley, an investigative reporter from down in Columbia. She had reached out to our attorney who's helping represent Logan and make sure all the I's that get dotted and the T's get crossed, making sure we get justice. And wanted to talk with him and he's just basically working on getting Logan justice. So he said, with that information, you may want to call Steve and just kind of guide him through what had happened.

And we'd actually arranged a one on one meeting, which I thought was great. So we met and she had told me, I guess it was about three or four weeks after the fact, I'm not really sure that apparently he was not in prison because of a fingerprint mistake, whether it was they weren't taken or they weren't transferred to sled, nobody can really figure out. The biggest kick in the gut was a week later when she got a hold of me and said, there's also a second set of fingerprints that were never taken for another crime. With all that being said, there's also a second set of fingerprints that were never taken for another crime. So with all that being said, the solicitors say they didn't know about the previous crimes,

so they couldn't charge him. But in the meantime, if you look at his rap sheet, you kind of know not to knock his charges down to something less offensive or time served. This is a guy that 25 felonies, okay, within, I guess, a little over 10 years, spent only 600 and some days, a little over 600 days in prison. His longest in prison was 400 days. Think about that. Maybe two years for 25 felonies, he should have been doing 15 years. An habitual offender. I know your lawyer, Dick Harputlian, he's a former state senator down there.

He's been around a long time. He knows the system. I mean, is he working to kind of get some answers for you on this on how in the heck this could have happened? Well, you know, I made a phone call to Dick, okay. A good friend of mine recommended that we get Logan some representation in the family to make sure that, you know, nobody missed anything. So Dick is really consulting right now to make sure that things are being done the way they should be and making sure that all the I's are dotted and T's are crossed and that's really about it right now and he

is participating in whatever he needs to but he is my voice right now and he is our contact for any of the great detectives down there. Detective McCoy, who I've become really good friends with, they confer us with the Chief of Police, Kip Holbrook. Just great people. But Dick is brought on for a very specific reason right now and that's to make sure that he's not back on the streets yet.

I know we're still kind of early in this process, Steve. What do you want to see happen? I'm assuming you want the maximum penalty. Death penalty. No doubt. You want the death penalty? Well, the punishment has to fit the crime, right? So let's take us through a little bit of this real quick.

An innocent girl, 22 years old, beautiful, with her whole life ahead of her, okay, was sentenced to death, okay, for nothing. The least that should happen to him is the death penalty. The least. Nothing else is acceptable. He's earned the right. He's earned it over a decade of crime. He just graduated and now he needs to pay the piper. When do you think you'll know if that will happen? You know, I don't know. I haven't had much discussion with, we've had one meeting with the Solicitor's Office, I guess in Ristlin County.

We did go to one of the bond hearings that Dickie didn't feel like showing up for in Lexington County. So they're moving that to Circuit Court, I believe, which will be, will be at every hearing that we need to be. But I know the investigation is always ongoing. They're always looking for more evidence. But July 2050 has another court hearing. I assume after that, things will kind of get rolled when I would assume.

Well, Steve, are there any final thoughts, anything you'd like to leave us with about Logan? You know, Logan was a bright star in the future of kids, you know, she was gonna be a great mother, a great teacher. She's a great friend. She's loyal. That's one thing I really want to point out. Loyal loyalty was key to Logan. If you crossed her she was loyally done with you. But she was the kind of person that stuck up for the underdog. Anybody that was in a crowd, any friend, any young person that was in a crowd that didn't fit in, she pulled them in. She made sure they felt included. And that's just the type she was. She didn't want to see anybody lonely, to be honest with you.

Steve Federico, thank you so much for coming on. And we're going to keep a close eye on this. This should never have happened. Thank you so much. I appreciate you reaching out. You know, the media, especially lately since something posted, I guess on a digital channel, really has been kind of cool. And I think it sounds to me and the feeling I get, there's a lot of media out there now that know about Logan and realize how this was so preventable and are furious. So, and I want people to stay furious. I want people to stay on her side, not my side, her side. I'm speaking for Logan every time I talk.

It's for Logan, it's from Logan. We need to fix our justice system somehow. I hate that our daughter had to be the cost of that, but if we can save some other people, some other kids, some other parents, whatever we, whatever we can, whoever we can touch in a positive way through this, that's what we want to do. Thank you, Steve. You're welcome.

And we're going to keep a close eye on Logan Federico's case. Thank you so much for joining me for this episode of Crime Fix. We'll see you back here next time. [♪ music playing, fades out.