'The Crash' Documentary Recap: Where Is Mackenzie Shirilla Now?

When a horrific car crash claimed the lives of two teenagers, and severely injured another, the residents of the mostly peaceful and crime-free city of Strongsville, Ohio were left confused about what exactly to feel. Were they to see the accident as a genuine mistake on the part of the 17-year-old girl who had been driving the car in the early hours of the day, or were they to consider the accident as the worst thing drug addiction among teenagers could lead to? Or was there simply more to it that was not apparent at first glance? Netflix’s latest true-crime documentary film, The Crash, takes us through the investigation that followed the violent car crash, and the changing perceptions of the people whose lives were most affected by it. A thoroughly exciting watch, The Crash also presents a new interview with Mackenzie Shirilla, the perpetrator who would be forever remembered on the internet as the woman who was most concerned about her jewelry while getting arrested.

What happened on 31st July 2022?

Early on the morning of 31st July, 2022, a police car reported to the scene of a car crash in a quiet neighborhood in Strongsville, Ohio. A bloody scene greeted the officers, and multiple patrol cars were called in to deal with the situation, especially since one of the three individuals inside the crashed Toyota Camry was still alive. As emergency responders rushed to the scene, 17-year-old Mackenzie Shirilla, who had been driving the car, was rescued and taken to the emergency room. The teenager was thankfully responsive and could identify herself to the police, but the two others were not so lucky. 20-year-old Dominic Russo, who had been seated in the passenger seat of the car, and 19-year-old Davion Flanagan, who had been in the back seat, were announced dead on the spot. 

The impact of the crash had been such that Davion’s body was flung forward and landed right on Dominic’s, and Mackenzie had somehow survived because of the airbags and the seatbelt. Moreover, the car had crashed into the solid wall of a building, passenger-side first, because of which Dominic and Davion had no chance of surviving. The families of all three individuals were notified by the police, and an investigation into how the crash had taken place was started. As soon as Mackenzie woke up in the emergency room and learnt of the truth, she was left devastated. Dominic and she had been dating for around 4 years, and the two were even considering getting married, at least according to Mackenzie’s parents. They were always spending time together, and Mackenzie had also moved into Dominic’s house some time back.

On the night of the 30th, Mackenzie, Dominic, and Davion attended a party at a friend’s house to celebrate Mackenzie and Davion’s recent high-school graduation, from where they drove to one of their close friends, Bubba’s house. Here, one of Mackenzie’s best friends, Rosie Graham, was also present, as she happened to be Bubba’s girlfriend, and the five were supposed to have a sleepover together. Although they had initially planned to do psilocybin mushrooms for recreation, it was too late by the time Dominic, Davon, and Mackenzie, who was carrying the drugs, arrived at the house, and so they apparently chose not to. Instead, the teenagers stuck to smoking marijuana throughout the night. According to the two witnesses, Rosie and Bubba, there were no arguments or fights among any of them that night, and they spent time hanging out like they usually would quite frequently. Around 5 the next morning, Dominic and Mackenzie decided to leave for home, and Davion decided to take a ride with them to his own home, despite having plans of meeting up with Bubba again later on in the day. This was the last time the two boys were seen alive by their friends, and it was during this drive back home that the horrific tragedy unfolded.

Was Mackenzie just an unfortunate victim or a calculative murderer?

The first theory that came to everyone’s mind was that the teenagers must have done a lot of drugs in the hours before they drove back home, and so Mackenzie was still under the influence while behind the wheel of her car. Therefore, it seemed obvious that Mackenzie had made a terrible mistake, one that proved to be fatal for her boyfriend and her close friend. Following the same line of thought, it seemed natural to sympathize with the teenager as well, since she did not seem to know what she had gotten herself into. However, certain things seemed off from the get go, starting with the fact that there were actually no skid marks on the road before the crash site. The car had been speedily traveling towards a T-junction, and instead of going left or right when it finally arrived at the junction, the vehicle kept speeding straight, first onto the lawn and then crashing hard into a building. In such a situation, the driver would be expected to apply the brakes after realizing that she had missed the turn, or at least while on the lawn.

However, there were simply no skid marks at all, which made it seem like Mackenzie had never applied the brakes, even after realizing that the car was about to crash. Although braking at such a short notice would not have probably saved them from the crash, the impact would still be far less. It is with this confusion that the investigators started looking into the matter, and also followed the movements of the car on CCTV footage captured on that night. Interestingly, about a minute or so before the crash, the black Toyota Camry was spotted making a right turn at an intersection, and this footage confused the investigators even more. The CCTV footage clearly showed the car making a proper right turn, without any signs of speeding or reckless driving, which meant that Mackenzie was very much in control of the car at this time, and she was driving just like she normally would. Yet, while driving on the road right after, which led to the T-junction, Mackenzie sped exceedingly, with the car seemingly traveling at more than 120mph, for no apparent reason. The Event Data Recorder, which is basically the equivalent of the black box that is used to determine the cause of an aeroplane crash, was checked next, and it revealed that for more than 5 seconds preceding the crash, no brakes had been applied and the accelerator had been pushed to full throttle.

It was now time for the investigators to formulate theories about what might have happened, starting with the possibility that the brakes, accelerator, or any other part of the car could have malfunctioned, causing the crash. But a forensic auto investigator clearly found that all parts of the car had been completely functional before the accident, ruling out the most obvious theory. The second possibility was that Mackenzie had so much drugs in her system at the time that she had lost clarity of thought, and resultantly, control of her car. However, the toxicology reports showed only significant amounts of THC, the psychoactive chemical in marijuana, in her body, with no sign of the psilocybin mushrooms that were found on her after the crash, or any other drugs. It was evident from Mackenzie’s TikTok posts that she had a lot of practice driving while high on marijuana, as she often posted videos of herself smoking up while driving. According to Bubba and Rosie in the Netflix documentary, Mackenzie did not even smoke up at their house on the 30th, as she was suffering from a terrible cough at the time. 

After careful consideration, the police came to the conclusion that the crash could not be blamed on drugs. Since no attempts had been made to slow down the speeding car before the crash, which generally comes instinctively to any human being no matter how high they are, the accident definitely looked suspicious. Some unnatural swerving movements noticed from the EDR data also suggested that someone else might have been trying to forcefully maneuver the car before the crash. All these signs suggested the possibility that Mackenzie Shirilla had intentionally crashed the car in a calculated manner, passenger-side first, so that her boyfriend would die from the impact but she would still have a chance to survive.

What was the possible motive behind the crime?

But what could have possibly made a teenager ram their car into a building just to hurt her boyfriend, putting her own life at such a huge risk in the process? According to Mackenzie’s friends and family, she showed no sign of having suicidal thoughts, and in fact, she had already bought an expensive outfit and matching accessories for her look for her upcoming birthday bash. What gradually started to come out was the fact that Mackenzie and Dominic’s romantic relationship was extremely toxic beneath the façade of them being the perfect couple always hanging out with each other. They had a habit of showering love on each other before having nasty arguments and fights, much like any other teenage couple. But the youngsters, especially Mackenzie, would turn extremely manipulative and intimidating during these fights, proof of which was soon found.

According to Dominic’s family and some close friends, he had decided to finally leave Mackenzie in the weeks before his death, and tried breaking up with her. But Mackenzie reacted in her usual manner, showing up at his house unannounced on one instance, and threatening to ruin his life if he did not open the door and let her in. Dominic was so rattled that he took a video of the entire ordeal, with Mackenzie screaming at him and threatening him from outside the door, because he had decided to spend time with his family that day. Clearly obsessed with Dominic’s money (or maybe his family’s money), which was used to buy expensive and fancy gifts for her, Mackenzie perhaps did not want to lose this ‘stability’ in her life. Perhaps the money was not the only reason, or maybe there was no reason at all, and she simply could not accept the fact that her lover was trying to leave her. 

Dominic had totally stopped spending time with his family after he started dating Mackenzie, and while the couple looked cute and happy with each other, it was possibly Mackenzie who would force her boyfriend to be with her at all times in an act of control and dominance. Just two weeks before his death, Dominic had gotten in touch with his mother while being driven around by Mackenzie, and he had claimed that his girlfriend was angrily threatening to crash the car unless he promised to not break up with her. This, along with Mackenzie’s numerous hateful and brash posts on social media, painted an adequate picture of Mackenzie Shirilla to the police, and she was finally arrested on charges of double homicide. In my understanding, Mackenzie probably did not have too much idea about how the ‘accident’ might destroy her life, and she acted more out of anger and spite than with a plan, but she surely knew what she was doing when speeding the car up and driving straight towards the building. Or perhaps she did make this plan in a cold and calculative manner in the days prior, as the police believed. Either way, Mackenzie knew she was going to kill Dominic and try and get away with it by claiming it was an accident.

What was the court ruling in the case?

When the court trial began in 2023, Mackenzie chose a bench trial, meaning that a judge would preside over the case instead of a jury, perhaps thinking that it would be easier for her defense lawyer to convince a single person instead of 12 people. Throughout the trial, the only detail worth mentioning was the defense’s attempt to claim that Mackenzie suffered from a blood-pressure-related illness that caused her to sometimes lose consciousness randomly. According to the Shirilla family, this was the reason for the crash, as their daughter apparently lost consciousness in the minutes, or seconds, leading up to the accident, and this was why she did not make any attempts to slow the car down. However, going by the same logic, Mackenzie’s foot should also have come loose from the accelerator had she really lost consciousness, but the data clearly showed that it remained pressed against the pedal. The defense ultimately did not stand a chance, and Mackenzie Shirilla was found guilty of the aggravated murder of Dominic Russo and Davion Flanagan, for which she was sentenced to 15 years to life in prison. 

Do Mackenzie and her parents show guilt or remorse?

Something that Netflix’s The Crash brings to the fore through personal interviews is how Mackenzie’s parents, Steve and Natalie Shirilla, indirectly will have to bear responsibility for what their daughter did. If it was not evident from her TikTok content, numerous people who knew her came out to reveal how Mackenzie was an extremely toxic and abusive bully who loved hating on people. Yes, her personality on TikTok might have been just an image she built for the online world to see, but it is also important to acknowledge the fact that when someone goes on to do something that makes them a suspect for murder, such social media posts are obviously going to have an impact on how they are perceived. Some of her teenage friends find it difficult to believe she was prosecuted based on these posts, but it is important for all to remember that social media does not exist in a vacuum outside real life. 

On numerous occasions, Mackenzie had gotten involved in arguments and disciplinary issues with other students and even teachers, because of which her parents were called in to the principal’s office. In all these instances, Steve and Natalie only defended their daughter, finding nothing wrong with her serious attitude problem, which only made the girl believe that she could walk away from any situation without facing any consequences. This was clearly what made her believe that she could get away with murder as well. Steve and Natalie continue to defend their daughter in the documentary interviews, and especially Natalie comes off as a really insensitive person. She states that the only issue with her daughter is that she has a loud mouth, and then goes on to ignore all the glaring problems. Even during the court trial, Natalie Shirilla appeared quite a self-centered and insensitive woman, who almost struggled to remember Davion’s name, and was also stopped by the judge when she kept talking only about Mackenzie in her plea, without mentioning the plight of the victims and their families. It is all the more evident after the release of The Crash that Steve and Natalie’s inability to teach their daughter serious life lessons had led to her committing the murders. Mackenzie also adds little, almost nothing, through the interviews in the documentary, as she keeps repeating her story over and over again. She still maintains that she has no recollection of the moments leading up to the accident, and blames all of it on her physical ailment.

Where is Mackenzie Shirilla now?

Following her sentencing, Mackenzie Shirilla was dragged to prison, where she started serving her sentence of at least 15 years, with the judge having mentioned that there was a strong chance she might even spend the rest of her life in prison. Her parents continue to be hopeful that the wrongful sentence will be overturned, and they even carried out their investigation to help their daughter. Natalie Shirilla claims to have found text messages between Mackenzie and Dominic’s mother, in which it was clear that it was Dominic who had been threatening to kill Mackenzie. With this new information, the Shirillas filed an appeal in court in 2025, but it was rejected. In 2026, the Eighth District Court of Appeals upheld the sentencing as well, although the family might try to file more appeals in the future. As of now, Mackenzie Shirilla is serving her sentence at the Ohio Reformatory for Women, and the earliest she can file for parole will be in 2037. 

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