By Joey Morona
cleveland.com
STRONGSVILLE, Ohio — Mackenzie Shirilla says she did not intend to kill her boyfriend and their friend when she smashed her car into a brick building at 100 mph.
“I’m not a monster,” she says in the Netflix true-crime documentary “The Crash.” The interview from prison is the first time Shirilla, now 21, has spoken publicly at length since being convicted for the murders Dominic Russo and Davion Flanagan.
“I’m not saying I’m innocent,” she says. “I was a driver of a tragedy, but I’m not a murderer.”
The documentary revisits the circumstances of July 31, 2022. Shirilla, then 17 and a recent graduate of Strongsville High School, was driving Russo, 20, and Flanagan, 19, home from a party when she turned into the Progress Drive Business Park in Strongsville. One minute later, her Toyota Camry slammed into the building at full acceleration. Prosecutors said Shirilla intentionally caused the crash after her relationship with Russo soured.
“Two weeks before the crash, Dominic’s mother, Christine Russo, received a telephone call from her son,” Cuyahoga County assistant prosecutor Tim Troup says in the documentary. “He told her Mackenzie was driving erratically and dangerously and that he needed help.”
According to the documentary, Dominic then called a friend of his mother’s who overheard Mackenzie saying she’ll “crash this car.” Christine Russo also provided police with video from Dominic’s phone that showed Shirilla being verbally abusive toward her son days before the crash.
In the prison interview, Shirilla offers a different account of the relationship.
“We would have probably been married by now,” she says. “We argued, we got back together, we broke up, we got back together. It was rocky, but it was good. We were in love.”
Shirilla says she has no memory of the crash.
“I remember turning on the street and then I’m waking up in the hospital the next day and my whole life is shattered.”
During her trial, Shirilla’s attorney argued that she had a condition that occasionally caused her to pass out. In the documentary, both Shirilla and her mother, Natalie, suggest the crash was caused by a medical emergency.
“I always tell everybody that she has POTS,” Natalie Shirilla says. “POTS stands for Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome. It’s a blood pressure disorder. You can either get dizzy, lightheadedness, you can black out.”
Her daughter says the onset of POTS can happen quickly.
“If I move a certain way, it just comes out of nowhere,” she says. “I could just be sitting like this and it could hit me.”
At her trial, Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Nancy Margaret Russo rejected that explanation, saying Shirilla “chose a course of death and destruction” and finding her guilty of murder.
Shirilla is serving two concurrent life sentences at a state women’s prison in Marysville. She will be 33 years old when she becomes eligible for parole in 2037.
“It’s really hard every day in here,” she says. “I try to wake up and be the best person I can be every day. Stay out of trouble. There’s not a moment that doesn’t pass where I don’t think about them or I don’t feel the pain in my chest.”
Near the end of the documentary, Shirilla is asked if she has anything else to add. She turns to her attorney, who is off-screen, for direction, saying she doesn’t want to “force anything” or “sound crazy” before turning back to the camera.
“I just want to make sure that I’m big on the ‘no intent,’” she says. “There was no intent whatsoever. I have excessive amounts of remorse for Dominic, Davion, both of their families. This was not intentional, and I will do everything I can to prove that to the world and the families.”
The 90-minute documentary features new interviews with family members, friends and investigators, along with home videos, social media posts, text messages and surveillance and police bodycam footage.
“The Crash” is currently the No. 2 movie on Netflix in the U.S.
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