In a tragic incident, 17-year-old Mackenzie Shirilla crashed into a brick wall at a speed of 100 mph, resulting in the deaths of her boyfriend and another teenager.
Mackenzie survived the crash on July 31, 2022, but the circumstances surrounding the early morning collision quickly raised suspicions. Was it a mere accident, or something more sinister?
The Netflix documentary The Crash delves into Mackenzie’s tumultuous relationship with her live-in boyfriend, Dominic Russo, in the days leading to the fatal crash. The collision claimed the lives of 20-year-old Dominic and his 19-year-old friend, Davion Flanagan. Investigators found no evidence of the car’s brakes being applied.
Mackenzie and her family, however, maintain that she would never have intentionally caused the crash. They suggest it might have been triggered by a medical emergency.
Here’s an overview of this gripping case and its current status:
How Did Mackenzie Shirilla and Dominic Russo meet?
Mackenzie and Dominic’s relationship began in school, and by the time of the crash, they had been together for about four years. As detailed in the documentary released on May 15, the couple lived together and spent the summer documenting their lives on social media, with Mackenzie aiming to grow her influence online.
“There was talk of getting married,” Mackenzie’s dad Steve Shirilla said. “He was part of our family, someone my daughter was planning a life with.”
Friend Rosie Graham described them in The Crash as “such a duo,” remembering how doting Dominic often was.
The final night of his life, Dominic’s close-knit friend group hung out at a party—or “friends sleepover” as Rosie called it—having deep conversations and watching YouTube videos. Rosie recalled Dominic stroking Mackenzie’s hair as she fell asleep on the couch around 3 a.m.
“There was not one argument,” she said in the documentary. “There was not one moment of tension there was not one bad vibe towards anybody.”
Mackenzie Shirilla’s July 2022 Car Crash Killed Boyfriend, Friend
The couple and Davion—who friends remembered as goofy and easy going—left the party around 5:30 a.m. on July 31, 2022.
A short time later, video obtained by Court TV showed Shirilla’s black car racing down a Cuyahoga County street, reachin speeds of 100 miles per hour, before the vehicle slammed into the brick wall of a commercial building at the end of the street.
Strongsville Police Officer Michael Galassi would later testify that when he arrived at the scene that morning at 6:20 a.m. the car looked “like it’s cut in half” in what he told the dispatcher was a “pretty severe” crash, according to court records filed in the Ohio Supreme Court.
The impact of the crash had shoved Mackenzie under the front console, while Russo suffered “severe head trauma” as he sat in the front passenger seat, per the court records. Flanagan, who had been in the back seat of the vehicle, was found unresponsive with “severe head trauma” laying on his back on top of Russo with his head pointed to the top of the car.
Though both men were pronounced dead at the scene, according to prosecutors, Mackenzie survived. Steve shared in the documentary that she suffered a broken femur, three broken ribs, a lacerated liver, lacerated kidney, broken arm and damage to her carotid arteries.
Questions Emerge About Cause of Mackenzie Shirilla’s Crash
Initially it appeared to be nothing more than a tragic accident—but the Toyota’s event data recorder revealed that Mackenzie had pressed the accelerator “to its full extent” before the crash and never applied the brakes, according to a statement from the Cuyahuga County Office of the Prosecuting Attorney. The car was also found to have “no defects” that could have caused the crash.
Investigators also uncovered that surveillance video footage of the crash, which showed the vehicle racing down the street before the impact of the car can be heard.
Although a bag of psilocybin mushrooms was found in Mackenzie’s pocket at the time of the crash, along with some marijuana inside the vehicle, toxicology reports showed only THC, the active chemical in marijuana, found in the teen’s system, according to the documentary.
As Assistant Prosecutor Tim Troup contended, “This was not some sort of party gone wrong.”
Mackenzie Shirilla and Dominic Russo Had Volatile Relationship, Authorities Say
Investigators also delved deeper into the couple’s past and learned that it had been a volatile relationship—with the pair frequently breaking up and then making up.
“I told you it’s my way or the highway,” Mackenzie texted in one exchange shared in the documentary. “I would watch your back from now on. and your house. and your car. and your life. and any of your friends.”
Dominic replied, “Kenzie this isnt (sic) right and u know it.”
Just weeks before the fatal crash, Dominic’s mom told investigators that her son called her claiming Mackenzie was driving erratically. She sent her friend Chris Martin to go pick him up. Martin called Dominic to see where he was at and, according to the court records, overheard Mackenzie telling Dominic, “I’m going to wreck this car right now.” When Martin arrived at the scene, he testified that he saw the pair get in a “tussle” inside the car and saw Mackenzie “swinging her hands at him.”
In light of the evidence, authorities concluded that Mackenzie had intentionally caused the high-speed crash.
“I think Dominic and Davion were yanking on the wheel, grabbing at the gear shift, and it was just too late,” Troup said in The Crash of their final moments. “One hundred percent gas pedal, no attempt at using the brake. The evidence all combines together to show this was not an accident.”
He described it as a “toxic relationship on a crash course for termination one way or another.”
Dominic’s brother Angelo Russo had lived next door to the couple and told investigators in Sept. 2022 that his brother had been planning to end the relationship.
“For me,…there’s two types of love that you give somebody,” he said during the interview, according to The Crash. “And it’s like, I love that person unconditionally. And there’s a type of love that’s selfish and restricted, and I want them all to myself. And that was Kenzie with Dom.”
Mackenzie—who claimed to have no recollection of the crash that day—was arrested on Nov. 4, 2022 on her way home from physical therapy, according to the documentary.
Her family was shocked and continued to insist that the crash had been an accident.
Where Is Mackenzie Shirilla Now?
During the trial, prosecutors laid out the evidence against Mackenzie, while her defense attorneys presented evidence that the teen suffered from Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS), a chronic disorder of the autonomic nervous system that causes the heart to beat faster.
“It’s a blood pressure disorder,” her mom Natalie Shirilla explained in the Netflix documentary. “You can either get dizzy, light headedness. You can black out.”
Ultimately, however, Shirilla was found guilty during the bench trial in August 2023 of four counts of murder, four counts of felonious assault and two counts of aggravated vehicular homicide.
“This was not reckless driving,” Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Nancy Margaret Russo said when handing down the verdict, per WKYC. “This was murder.”
When making the decision Judge Russo said the video footage of the crash showed there was “purpose and intent” that morning, adding, “She chose a course of death and destruction that day.”
Shirilla was sentenced to 15 years to life in prison, per the news outlet.
Her attorneys appealed the verdict; however, the appeal was denied after Ohio’s Eighth District Court of Appeals upheld an earlier decision that it had been filed one day past the jurisdictional deadline, according to Court TV.
What did Mackenzie Shirilla Said About the Crash From Prison?
From behind the prison walls, Mackenzie sat down with producers of The Crash to offer her perspective.
“I’ve never spoke before and I never told my side of the story, and I understand there’s many different sides to the story and different perspectives,” she said, “but I just want to say my truth, and I just know myself, and I know I’m not a monster.”
Mackenzie—who believes she and Dominic would be married now had he survived—still insisted that she had no memory of the crash.
“I remember turning on the street,” she said, “and I’m waking up in the hospital the next day, and then my whole life is shattering.”
She said she never would have hurt Dominic or Davion intentionally, and believes “the most logical” explanation for the crash is that it was “a medical emergency.”
“I have no recollection of that morning. I’m not saying I’m innocent,” she said. “I was a driver of a tragedy, but I’m not a murderer.”
