Legal expert reveals how Mackenzie Shirilla's parole could be impacted after new details released in Netflix doc
Topics: Mackenzie Shirilla, True crime, Ohio
Thomas Bamford
Featured Image Credit: Netflix
Topics: Mackenzie Shirilla, True crime, Ohio
A Netflix documentary centring on the 2022 case of Mackenzie Shirilla is currently the number one movie on the platform, but legal experts say what's in it could have real consequences for her future.
In 2022, 17-year-old Shirilla was found guilty of killing her boyfriend Dominic Russo and his best friend Davion Flanagan after crashing her car into a brick wall at 100 mph.
She was convicted on 12 counts, including murder, and sentenced to 15 years to life. She is not eligible for parole until 2037.
Shirilla chose to have a bench trial, meaning there was no jury, a judge alone decided her fate.
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McKenzie claims to this day that she has no memory of the crash. But after investigators hired an expert to look at the car's computer data, it started to look like more than just an accident.
NBC legal analyst Misty Mera says the documentary could potentially affect McKenzie's chances when she eventually faces the parole board.
Speaking to Access Hollywood, she said: "There are all sorts of different factors that come into play, statements and petitions can be sent to the parole board to take into consideration. So everything we saw in this documentary could be a central part of the parole process."
On the morning of July 31, 2022, Mackenzie had been driving Dom and Davion home from a high school graduation gathering in Strongsville, Ohio, when her car smashed into a brick building. Dom and Davion were killed. Mackenzie, the sole survivor, was airlifted to hospital with serious injuries.
Surveillance footage showed the car making a controlled, deliberate turn before travelling almost half a mile at close to 100 mph. Sergeant Ryan Fox from Ohio State Highway Patrol said: "There's approximately 5 seconds of pre-crash data. For the entire 5 seconds, the accelerator pedal was at 100%."
The car showed no attempt to use the brake. A forensic investigator confirmed there were no mechanical faults, the car itself had not failed.
Tim Troup, Assistant Prosecutor in Mackenzie Shirilla's case, said that McKenzie and Dominic had an "incredibly toxic and failing relationship," with proof of intense fights between the pair. It also emerged that Dom had tried to break up with Mackenzie multiple times in the weeks before the crash, and that she had reportedly threatened to crash a car with him inside just two weeks earlier, something Troup described as "prior calculation."
One of Dom's friends told police that prior to the fatal crash, Dom had called him saying McKenzie was going to crash the car with him in it. "She says she'll crash his car right now," friend Christopher "Hench" Martin recalled in the documentary.
Mackenzie was arrested in November 2022 and found guilty after a four-day trial. The judge stated she had "chosen a course of death and destruction that day."
In the documentary, Mackenzie and her parents speak out for the first time.
She claims she has "no recollection" of the crash and insists she carries "excessive amounts of remorse" for Dom and Davion. Her parents say there was "no intent whatsoever."
But Mackenzie's portrayal of herself on camera is being challenged by her former prison mate Kate Crowder, who claims what she witnessed was very different. "Mackenzie Shirilla did not walk around that prison yard with an ounce of remorse. All she cared about was doing her makeup, walking the yard with her one or two friends."
Kate claims Mackenzie "never cried the entire time I saw her in prison. Not one tear. So for her to sit in that documentary and say that she thought about it every day was not true."
Mackenzie's first appeal has already been denied. Her parole hearing is scheduled for September 2037.
Mackenzie Shirilla and her boyfriend Dominic Russo get into an argument. A friend overhears Shirilla tell him: “I will crash this car right now.”
Shirilla is driving Russo, 20, and their friend Davion Flanagan, 19, from Russo’s home to a friend’s house. At around 5.30am, she crashes the car into a Plidco Building in Strongsville, Ohio, travelling at 100mph without braking. Police arrive on the scene 45 minutes later. Russo and Flanagan are pronounced dead and Shirilla is transported to MetroHealth Medical Center.
200 people attend a vigil for Russo and Flanagan. Shirilla remains in critical condition. When a detective visits her in hospital, she is said to be speaking a ‘unique language’ similar to pig Latin.
Shirilla attends a Halloween party wearing fancy dress which resembles a corpse, which Davion’s father considers in very poor taste. He says in Netflix’s The Crash: “Dressing up as corpses three months after she killed two people, it just sickened us to the very core.”
Shirilla is arrested and faces 18 charges, including two counts of aggravated murder. She also faces charges for allegedly breaking into the Columbia Church of God in Columbia Station days before the crash, along with drug trafficking and possession charges.
Shirilla’s trial begins. Her defence team argue she may have passed out at the time of the crash due to postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), but no medical records or expert testimony confirm the diagnosis.
Shirilla is found guilty on all counts. Judge Nancy Margaret Russo calls her ‘hell on wheels’, and the court concludes she intentionally crashed the car in a premeditated act.
Shirilla is sentenced to two concurrent 15 years to life sentences. Her legal team later lose an appeal and relief petition. She remains incarcerated in Ohio Reformatory for Women.
Mackenzie’s parents insist that she’s innocent. Her father Steve tells WKYC: “Show me one piece of evidence - one - that says she did this on purpose. Show it to me, then she's right where she belongs and she's guilty of it. But there isn't any.” Her mother Natalie claims there are texts in which Shirilla says Russo was ‘trying to end her life’.
Netflix’s The Crash premieres. In it, Shirilla insists she is ‘not a murderer’ and has no memory of the crash, continuing to blame POTS.
Steve Shirilla is placed on administrative leave from his job as an art and digital media teacher at Mary Queen of Peace School in Cleveland following allegations he had ‘demonstrated poor judgement’. Viewers of Netflix’s documentary objected to his attitude towards Shirilla’s marijuana use and his dismissal of claims she told a classmate to end their life.
This is when Shirilla will be eligible for parole.