Mackenzie Shirilla, the Ohio teenager who was convicted of deliberately crashing her car at 100 mph and killing her boyfriend and her friend, has spoken out for the first time.
In the Netflix documentary “The Crash,” she maintained her innocence, saying she was “not a monster.”
The documentary, released on May 15, looks back on the tragedy of July 31, 2022 in Strongsville, Ohio. When 17-year-old Shirilla crashed her Toyota Camry into a brick wall while speeding, Dominic Russo, 20, who was her boyfriend, and Davion Flanagan, 19, died instantly. The accident left Shirilla seriously injured.
At a 2023 trial, Judge Nancy Margaret Russo also found Shirilla guilty of murder, calling her “a veritable hell on wheels.”
The court said she “had a mission and she carried it out with precision. The mission was death.”
After the court’s decision, she was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 15 years.
The teen is now 21 years old and incarcerated at the Ohio Reformatory for Women. Shirilla tells Netflix she has no memory of the accident. According to prosecutors, evidence confirmed that car data revealed his foot was fully on the accelerator without any attempt to brake.
In the documentary, she said: “I’m not a monster. I’m not saying I’m innocent. I was the cause of a tragedy. But I’m not a murderer.”
Prosecutors said the couple had a toxic relationship, using text messages in which Shirilla threatened to crash the car weeks before the incident. Shirilla’s parents disagree with this claim, saying she may have suffered from an illness caused by POTS syndrome.
