We have a legal update on Mackenzie Shirilla, the 21-year-old would-be influencer who is serving two concurrent 15 years to life sentences for killing her boyfriend Dominic Russo and their friend Davion Flanagan in a 2022 car accident, detailed in the Netflix documentary The Crash. About a month ago, Mackenzie’s lawyers filed a third appeal, hoping the Ohio Supreme Court would take her case. (True story: her second appeal was thrown out on a technicality. It was supposed to be filed within 365 days from a specified date… and her lawyers forgot to account for it being a Leap Year. Words fail.) Well, the court has officially responded and the Chief Justice said, to put it in the Pig Latin/Ubbi Dubbi language Mackenzie frequently uses: Dubenubied.
Mackenzie Shirilla will remain in prison for the murder of her boyfriend Dominic Russo and friend Davion Flanagan.
The 21-year-old, whose involvement in a deadly 2022 car crash was documented in Netflix’s The Crash, was an appeal by the Supreme Court of Ohio, according to legal documents obtained by E! News.
Shirilla filed a notice of appeal earlier this year, with her legal team saying her case “presents substantial constitutional questions and matters of great public and great general interest” after her post-conviciton relief petition was rejected due to being filed one day late from her deadline.
In response, prosecutors argued in a May filing that Shirilla’s appeal “fails to present an issue of public or great general interest,” saying her claim “concerns only the untimely filing of a post-conviction petition due to the mistake of counsel.”
Ultimately, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Ohio Sharon L. Kennedy refused to review Shirilla’s case, writing in a June 23 decision that she “declines to accept jurisdiction of the appeal.”
E! News has reached out to Shirilla’s attorney for comment but hasn’t heard back.
Shirilla is currently serving two concurrent 15 years to life sentences for killing Russo, 20, and Flanagan, 19, on July 31, 2022, when the Toyota Camry she was driving smashed into a brick wall at over 100 mph.
During her trial, prosecutors alleged Shirilla “chose a course of death and destruction” by purposefully crashing the car. Meanwhile, the aspiring influencer maintained her innocence, saying she had no memory of what happened before the collision.
In her first interview from prison, Shirilla affirmed that she had “no intent whatsoever” on Russo, with whom she was in an on-and-off relationship, and their friend Flanagan.
“I was a driver of a tragedy,” she said in The Crash, “but I’m not a murderer.”
Shirilla added, “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.”
Good. Mackenzie is exactly where she belongs. And who knows, maybe sometime before 2037, she’ll have grown up enough to have availed herself of some of the resources available to her at the Ohio Reformatory for Women. I looked them up before — back when we heard Mackenzie was complaining of being “bored” in prison — and they have several programs she could be doing for her own education and towards job training. Personally, I’d dive into the educational front to start with. She’s college-aged, so it would be a way to keep up with her peers from high school. It would also be an opportunity for her to learn what’s wrong with the sentence “There’s not a moment that doesn’t pass where I don’t think about them.” Sorry not sorry, I can’t stop the syntax snark.
Photos courtesy of Netflix and via Instagram
Just watched Annie Elise podcast/youtube on this situation (most recent video). Seems like Mackenzie is adjusting to prison life and her mother still wants to be accepted as a friend and not be a parent.
Her mom is a huge reason why she is the way she is. This young woman has never been held accountable for her behavior until now.
Her parents coddled her at every turn and continue to do so while she is in prison. Nothing is ever her fault ever. They created a monster and then were happy to send her to live with her boyfriend to have him deal with her. The parents justified letting her 17 year old live with her 20 year old boyfriend because it was serious and they were going to get married. Da fuck can you possibly know that at 17? And she started dating him when she was 13 and he was 16.
The parent as a friend creates terrors, that are a nightmare for teachers, teammates, bosses, coaches, and in this case, friends.
The syntax error pointed out by Kismet is chef’s kiss. She’s accidentally telling on herself- her focus is 100% on herself, which is what her parents taught her – that she is the only person in the universe who matters.
Agreed. Her parents are absolute nightmares. Her father is just as bad. I heard audio of an interview he did with Chris Cuomo (I think) and he was a screaming lunatic. And I still cannot believe he chose to wear a shirt that said “BOOM” on it for the Netflix show. I mean, JFC.
You are spot on Lorelei that t-shirt shows such a lack of empathy. Zero situational awareness. When the dad was describing how he handled her suspension from school it was a huge red flag. He was proud of how he handled and thinks it was good parenting.
She’s not adjusting too well; or rather, she’s continuing her customary bad behavior. She’s had about three dozen misconduct reports of one sort or another–contraband, theft, refusing work, etc.
When they showed her in jail for her interview. Girly looked like she’s quite comfortable there. The smug look on her face and listening to her talk to her lawyer… YIKES!
It must be such a shock to her system because she has never had any rules or responsibilities. None. I wonder if now that her appeal has been denied, she will have an attitude adjustment. Part of her arrogance was her mom was convincing her she would get out early. At some point the reality will set in that she’s not leaving next week. Even if she were granted a new trial (I know she is out of appeals) she is such an unlikeable defendant. I think she got off really easy with concurrent sentences as opposed to consecutive. I wish the judge had treated each life like a separate crime as opposed to one crime – she murdered two people each murder should carry its own sentence.
Nothing like being from the same hometown as an infamous murderer. Granted, many years apart and I moved away a long time ago, but ugh.
I am almost pathologically invested in seeing this girl punished. She has displayed zero remorse and has decided to build a revolting “influencer” career on the back of fame acquired as a murderer.
I hope she is locked up for life.
@Jenny, I am curious, but don’t want to give this girl any clicks on the internet, so maybe you can answer this for me? Was she suicidal when she drove the car into the wall? Clearly she showed a disgusting disregard for the life of her passengers, but I am wondering what her personal end-goal was.
Also, I am aghast that it’s 15 years, served concurrently. She has her whole life ahead of her on the outside…if she smartens up.
From what I know – it was a planned murder/suicide as Dominic Russo (her bf) was going to break up with her for good. Apparently she had previously tried to stab him and also stalked / abused him and his family. It was about control and her control over him was about to end.
Megs283 It’s difficult to say what her intentions were. She was the only one wearing a seatbelt but driving 100 mph into a building suggests she was in a rage. The investigation opines the boys were unbelted because they were struggling with her to gain control of the car ( such a horrifying detail). She was also diagnosed as a malignant narcissistic and they’re very rarely suicidal ( that’s why mental health experts doubt Epstein killed
himself).
I am very aware of her age and don’t consider myself a particularly punitive person but her actions after the accident reveal her to have been shockingly remorseless and really cunning. She was working out an alibi with her mother ( speaking in code: think Pig-Latin) right in front of the police. Within days she and her mother were looking for modeling work to monetize her fame from being a murderer. Honestly the more you look into her and her family the uglier it gets.
@megs That girl is so strange. I almost think she’s like a toddler who doesn’t understand the correlations of actions and consequences. They know that she went by that spot a few days before the accident. There was no reason for her to be on that road the night of the accident. That girl has some serious issues, and her parents are her biggest enablers. He wanted to leave, they’re relationship was abusive, he was the victim. She wasn’t going to let him leave her, then who would take care of her???!! It’s 15yrs to life. I don’t think she’s going to get parole anytime soon, she’s still an entitled mess.
I don’t understand why so many people insist on her guilt just because she is irredeemably unlikeable.
She’s self absorbed, seemingly no remorse, conniving but nothing about what I’ve seen has been an indisputable case.
I’ve seen several because I was expecting to watch Netflix and be convinced she was guilty but no, it wasn’t convincing about her guilt. it was just geared towards making her unlikeable. So I watched another cuz internet said it contained more convincing info but it was just more of the same.
No girl as in love with herself to that extent, no one that vain and materialistic would choose THIS as revenge. Yes her personality does seem vindictive but they’d choose vengeance that only affected the victim.
A girl like her wouldn’t choose slamming into a building which could easily leave her paralyzed, disfigured, dead. That would end her beauty, her money, her social media looks based career, her popularity, ability to party. It makes zero sense that she’d do that.
I would love to know the success rate of prison educational and vocational programs, especially for women (most of whom I imagine are victims of circumstance not irredeemable sociopaths). Even someone like this who will ideally spend a lifetime behind bars could theoretically do some good with an education? Mentoring others? Advocating for prisoner justice? IDK.
If her sentencing started in 2022, she will be out before she is 33!!
How does that math up with a 30 year sentence?
OP is correct. She received two *concurrent* 15 year sentences meaning she’s serving them at the same time. She did NOT get back-to-back sentences, unfortunately.
She has a 15 year to life sentence. I doubt she will get paroled the first time. Even the judge said she could potentially spend the rest of her life in jail.
WTaF? Women have received harsher sentences for self defense. Whiteprivilegesezwut?
I predict her post prison life will be nothing but hustling and struggling, probably more prison time. But still. Gah.
I’m really hoping she gets denied parole. Remorse and rehabilitation go a long way to convince a parole panel and thus far she has not demonstrated that she is capable of either. She also strikes me as a sociopath so I do believe she poses a danger to others.
As a former corrections employee I can assure you that the majority of female inmates are not victims of circumstance. As for the success of education programs, it varies wildly from state to state. There are too many factors to make a definitive conclusion but overall, Inmate Services have a positive impact on participants.
Maybe I’m swayed by OITNB, but isn’t most crime statistically speaking driven by socioeconomics and not pathology?
I actually did a paper on this last year. The US has a high rate of return because we don’t rehabilitate, we punish continually. The Netherlands has a low return because they rehabilitate, you’re encouraged to go to school or work, the guards treat you as human and punishments aren’t handed out just to break you.
No doubt our for profit prison system promotes recidivism. Why wouldn’t it?
At this point until/if she shows real remorse I don’t see her getting parole. She’d be a constant danger to anyone she came into contact with.
“White gas” indeed. Gross.
I don’t follow this sort of thing (I’m up early and looking for something to read) but MF YIKES all the way down!
I just hope some paralegal doesn’t get fired for missing the deadline. It really is the attorney’s fault. Why wait until the last day?! They probably knew it was indefensible and were grasping at straws. Whatever, Mackenzie.
I worked for lawyers for many years and it was standard practice to wait until the last day. I also did the calendaring for the firm and it used to just be a paper chart that you looked at the start date and look at the amount of days column and it shows you the resulting date but it was a chart that came out new every year so it would have taken leap years into consideration. It really is inexcusable because I imagine it’s all done on line now.
It’s very inexcusable because of the internet now, I feel. I work a job where we look into specific time periods (120 days ago from today, etc), We google that date. Just like 365 days from today is Saturday, JUne 26 2027. It was a lazy mistake with a consequence (appeal was rejected).
This falls into the “You had one job” territory though I, as a human being, am glad all her appeals have been rejected
From what little I know about her and what happened (from here) she is the poster child for permissive parenting – this is what happens when you raise a child with NO boundaries and NO accountability for their actions/behaviour. It also sounds like her parents are the ultimate enablers – why aren’t they also being held accountable.
Ugh Netflix for bringing this terrible woman back into our sphere. I am glad she got denied. She has zero remorse, neither do her parents.
Well, to me it’s a good thing that Netflix did this because this girl could have gotten an appeal and she could get parole without the knowledge of what an unhinged mess she is. The POTs BS might have been believed.
POTS would never be believed. She does not have a diagnosis. A medical professional never testified in her defense. I have POTS and what she described is absolutely not what happens with POTS. No doctor will testify that the diagnosis accounts for what she described. Her defense just floated the idea and didn’t follow up.
I didn’t believe it but you know a lot of people would. Every time she comes up for parole, someone on the board should remember and say no. She’s wracked up a ton of violations in prison. Frankly, I hope she never gets out.
POTS would never be believed by people who know what it is and what is does and why it happens. But your regular Joe or Jill off the street with no medical knowledge and no time to look it up (like a jury) might believe it. I asked my best friend, who has a masters in library science. what POTS is and she had no idea because it’s not in her life at all.
Never overestimate what the general public knows.