by JENN WOOD
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Alexander Devonte Dickey, the man accused of murdering 22-year-old Logan Hailey Federico during a Columbia, South Carolina burglary last year, has accepted a plea agreement, according to S.C. fifth circuit solicitor Byron Gipson.
Gipson confirmed the agreement to FITSNews. A hearing is scheduled for Friday, November 6, 2026, at 9:00 a.m. EST. Details of the agreement — including the charges to which Dickey will plead and any sentencing recommendation — were not immediately available.
The development comes eighteen months after Federico was killed while visiting friends near the University of South Carolina campus. According to police, Dickey broke into the Cypress Street residence where she was staying on May 3, 2025, and fatally shot her in the chest during a burglary. His alleged crime spree also included stolen vehicles, credit card fraud and arson.
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A graduate of Cuthbertson High School in Waxhaw, North Carolina, Federico was attending community college with plans to finish her degree at the College of Charleston and become an elementary school teacher. Her father said a summer spent babysitting helped inspire her passion for working with children.
Her murder prompted sustained scrutiny of Dickey’s criminal history — and the failures that allowed him to remain free despite repeated arrests and convictions.
As FITSNews previously reported, omissions in Dickey’s criminal records obscured prior convictions. In a pivotal 2014 burglary case, he was sentenced as a first-time offender because convictions from other counties were missing from his official criminal history. Other charges were mislabeled, reduced through pleas or never properly entered into the state’s fingerprint-based records system.
Logan’s father, Stephen Federico, has argued those failures made his daughter’s death preventable.
“This guy had a 10-year criminal history,” he told FITSNews. “The system failed. It failed Logan.”
Federico pressed for the death penalty and urged federal authorities to consider taking the case. He also criticized what he described as a lack of communication from prosecutors following his daughter’s murder.
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His campaign reached Congress in September 2025, when he appeared before a U.S. House Judiciary subcommittee in Charlotte. Federico told lawmakers Dickey had accumulated 39 arrests and 25 felony charges, yet spent little more than 600 days behind bars over a decade. He urged lawmakers to address incomplete criminal records and the repeated release of offenders.
The prosecution subsequently became the subject of a public dispute between Gipson and S.C. attorney general Alan Wilson.
Wilson urged Gipson to seek the death penalty, pointing to the allegation that Federico’s murder occurred during a burglary as a statutory aggravating factor. He set an October 10, 2025 deadline for a response and offered to assume responsibility for the prosecution if necessary.
Gipson called the deadline “reckless, irresponsible, and unethical,” arguing his office needed to complete its review of the evidence — including pending forensic analyses — before making a capital charging decision. He also noted most of Dickey’s prior cases originated outside the fifth circuit.
Wilson subsequently assigned Melody J. Brown, chief of his office’s capital litigation unit, to assist Gipson’s team in reviewing the evidence and preparing the prosecution.
With the plea terms still undisclosed, the agreement’s implications for sentencing remain unknown.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR …
As a private investigator turned journalist, Jenn Wood brings a unique skill set to FITSNews as its research director. Known for her meticulous sourcing and victim-centered approach, she helps shape the newsroom’s most complex investigative stories while producing the FITSFiles and Cheer Incorporated podcasts. Jenn lives in South Carolina with her family, where her work continues to spotlight truth, accountability, and justice.
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