Deborah Ross

A Democratic lawmaker enraged a grieving father by mixing up his murdered daughter with another young blonde woman slaughtered by a suspected serial criminal.

North Carolina Rep. Deborah Ross made the unfortunate gaffe when she confused the killing of Logan Federico with that of Iryna Zarutska, with Federico's dad present.

Ross pointed to a picture of Federico, 22, and identified her as Zarutska, 23, during a hearing on Monday that examined how state systems failed to protect the public.

Logan's father Stephen was quick to jump the defense of his late daughter, telling her: 'This is my daughter, okay? This is Logan Federico. How dare you not know her.'

Ross proceeded to apologize profusely, saying: 'I am so sorry. Thank you so much, I am so sorry for you, I am so sorry for your loss and my heart goes out to you.'

Logan was visiting her boyfriend at the University of South Carolina in May when prosecutors said she was murdered by career criminal Alexander Dickey.

Ukrainian refugee Iryna was riding a train in Charlotte on August 22 when Decarlos Brown Jr. lunged from behind and stabbed her repeatedly in the neck, killing her.

Stephen went on to give emotional testimony to the congressional hearing on Monday, blasting lawmakers in the process for their soft take on crime.

'How many of y'all have kids? When I tell you this story... think about your child,' he told lawmakers.

'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.

'And 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,' Stephen continued, his voice shaking as he spoke.

Police said that Dickey had broken into multiple homes in the years before he killed Logan, and after shooting her he went on a spending spree with her credit cards.

'He should have been in jail for over 140 years for all the crimes he committed. You know how much time he spent in prison? A little over 600 days in 10 years', he said.

'He's only 30 years old. He was committing 2.65 crimes a year since he was 15 years old. But nobody could figure out that he couldn't be rehabilitated.

'Well you'd have to put him in prison to see if he could be rehabilitated,' Stephen said. 'Isn't that the idea of prison? But no.'

He went on to tell how his young daughter had just discovered her dream to be a teacher weeks before she was brutally murdered.

Stephen continued: 'All she wanted to do was visit her friends, and she was executed on her knees begging for her life,.

'There is only one thing that would have kept my daughter alive and that is putting a career criminal in prison. I will 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.'

Dickey is accused of breaking into the house where Logan was sleeping beside her boyfriend, and shooting her in the chest with a stolen 12-gauge shotgun.

Dickey has been charged with murder, two counts of first-degree burglary, two counts of possession of a weapon during the commission of a violent crime, and possession of a weapon by a convicted felon.

He also faces two counts of grand larceny, grand larceny of a motor vehicle, and three counts of financial transaction card theft, according to a press release by the Columbia Police Department.

Federico has previously told the Daily Mail he now hopes President Trump and US Attorney General Pam Bondi can help him put Dickey on death row.

'Our justice system failed both young ladies,' he said of his daughter and Zarutska.

'They failed my daughter first. Maybe if Logan's murder had gotten national attention, it might have been able to prevent the death of the Ukrainian girl.'

Democrats called for more funding for local prosecutors, saying understaffed offices are overwhelmed and cannot keep up with the case load.

They placed the blame on Republicans, who they said reduced crime-control funds and failed to provide mental health services. Republicans, meanwhile, blamed lenient policies and liberal judges.