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Mackenzie Shirilla | |
|---|---|
| Born | August 2, 2004 Strongsville, Ohio, U.S. |
| Criminal status | Incarcerated in Ohio Reformatory for Women |
| Convictions | Possession of drugs, Murder, Possession of criminal tools |
| Criminal penalty | Life in prison with the possibility of parole in 15 years |
| Details | |
| Victims | 2 (Dominic Russo and Davion Flanagan) |
Mackenzie Shirilla (born August 2, 2004) [1] is a convicted murderer sentenced to life in prison for intentionally crashing her car and killing her boyfriend, Dominic Russo, and his friend, Davion Flanagan. The crash occurred in Strongsville, Ohio, on July 31, 2022.
At the age of 17, she was arrested and eventually convicted of murdering her boyfriend, Dominic Russo, and his friend, Davion Flanagan, by intentionally crashing her car with them inside into a brick wall. Both Russo and Flanagan were pronounced dead on the scene while Shirilla was seriously injured. In a 2023 bench trial, she was found guilty of 12 felony charges and sentenced to life in prison with the possibly of parole in 15 years. As of 2025 [update] , she was incarcerated at Ohio Reformatory for Women. Multiple documentaries about the case were made by companies, including Investigation Discovery.
Mackenzie Shirilla was born in 2004 in Strongsville, Ohio. She was raised by her birth parents, Natalie and Steve Shirilla. At the time of the crash, Shirilla was a 17-year-old student of Strongsville High School. During her studies Shirilla met her first lover, Dominic Russo, who was a graduate of the school at the time of the incident. Russo was a businessman who led several clothing shops. Russo dated Shirilla for 4 years, and his brother has stated that their relationship had conflicts, including haven broken up and reunited multiple times. The pair started living together in 2021. Russo's mother, Christine, stated that six months before the crash the relationship between Russo and Shirilla experienced tension again, including multiple claims of Shirilla abusing Russo at length. For example, in July 2022, Russo called Christine in distress, and she sent a family friend to pick Russo up. The friend claimed to have seen Shirilla screaming; "I'm going to wreck this car right now" and trying to hit Russo with her hands. A video also filmed in July 2022 showed Shirilla threatening to break into Russo's house. [2]
Classmates of Shirilla said that she was a fan of Regina George, character from Mean Girls movie, and liked to imitate her. Shirilla was a notable student, with her reportedly being followed around the school by over a hundred girls. Shirilla had an account on TikTok where she posted videos of her lifestyle and clothing. The account had a large number of followers, as well as several companies sending samples of clothing products for review. [3] Shirilla reportedly enjoyed living in the Russo residence, spend time with Russo's family, and driving her car through areas of Strongville. Shirilla and Russo had a mutual friend, Davion Flanagan, who was 19-years old at the time of the incident. He was a school athlete who was adopted at the age of eight by his guardian, Jamie Flanagan, from his biological family who reportedly abused drugs. [4]
On July 30, 2022, Shirilla, Russo and his friend Flanagan, attended several events hours before the crash. At approximately 10:15 p.m., they attended a graduation party held at the house of Kelly Vraja, one of Shirilla's friends. The trio spent less than an hour here before driving to the house of their friend Paul Burlinghouse at 11 p.m., where they listened to music and smoked marijuana. They continiued spending time in the house until the start of July 31, leaving it in 5:30 a.m. [2] [4] At 5:34 am, a CCTV camera captured Shirilla's car, which was Toyota Camry, slowly driving on the road. One minute later, a second camera captured the car speeding away without any lights. The car exceeded the speed of 100 miles per hour and crashed into a brick wall of a nearby building. [3] First responders arrived to scene 45 minutes later and found the car having its airbags deployed at full capacity, inside the car were unconscious Russo, Flanagan and Shirilla. The police said that Shirilla was taken to a nearby hospital while Russo and Flanagan were pronounced dead at the scene. [5] During the rescue, the police found Shirilla stuck in her driver seat, with her feet wearing Prada slipper still pressing the accelerator. They also found psilocybin mushroom and digital scale in her possession. [6] [7]
Russo was sitting in a passenger seat while Flanagan lying in a back seat. [8] Reportedly, the crash occurred near a factory in Progress Drive Business Park located close to Pearl Road. [9] Body camera footage from the responding officers revealed one of them saying that the car "split in two" and another officer could be heard saying this is was "worst" car crash that he ever seen. Shirilla was severely injured and suffered multiple bone fractures, she was airlifted to a hospital where she underwent multiple sugeries. Witnesses said that she was "inconsolable" when she learned that Russo and Flanagan died. Shirilla posted multiple videos about her time in the hospital, showing the interior of the medical ward. The popularity of her account peaked during her her stay in the hospital, with multiple modeling agencies reaching out to her. Shirilla showed videos of her sitting in wheelchair attending concerts and posted satirical TikTok videos, one video showed her saying; "I’m just one of those girls that can do a lot of drugs and not die". [3] Reportedly, mother of Shirilla was planning to employ her to a modeling agency in Los Angeles and that during annual Halloween celebrations Shirilla attended a concert in Cleveland. [10]
In addition to this, she also posted photos of Russo and Flanagan dressed as corpses during Halloween. Such behaviour made the sister of Flanagan suspicious of her, she urged her family to call police on Shirilla. During the start of the investigation, detectives thought that the crash was an accident, some theorized that someone tampered with the vehicle. An expert in mechanics was called for assistance. He concluded that the car was completely operational during the crash and that brakes and pedals were working as intended. Shirilla was interrogated, and said that she blacked out during the crash and has no memories of the incident. Police later started to believe that she intentionally crashed her vehicle. They theorized that her intention in crashing the car was to commit murder-suicide because she did not want Russo to break-up with her again. The police tracked GPS data from her devices and discovered her driving to an industrial area 3 days before the incident, likely as a preparation for the crash. [3]
On August 4, 2022, the police gathered enough evidence to initiate an arrest of Shirilla shortly after her discharge from the hospital, she was charged with 17 crimes [3] that included 2 counts of aggravated murder, one count of burglary and drug trafficing. [11] A bodycam footage of the arrest was released in 2025, showing an officer handcuffing Shirilla as she was crying. He could be seen saying: "Im the one who’s been investigating the crash. You’re under arrest for aggravated murder, times two", she asked him to be careful when taking off her bracelet as he was locking the cuffs. The officer responded: “You got it. You got it” and she said: “Thank you”. As she was being transported to jail in a police cruiser, she was seen closing her eyes and seemingly trying to relax. [12] [13] On August 14, 2023, Shirilla was found guilty by Cuyahoga County Court on the charges of felonious assault, murder, aggravated vehicular homicide, drug possession, and criminal tools possession. [14] [15] Judge Nancy Margaret Russo said that Shirilla's actions were premeditated, calling her a "hell on wheels". [5] Her lawyers tried to defend Shirilla by claiming that she did not remember the crash, but the judge did not believe them. [16] They also said that there is no evidence that the crash was intentional. [17] Prosecutors said Shirilla had no remorse and showed social media videos of her dancing on Halloween as evidence. [18]
Shirilla's lawyer, James McDonnel, chose a bench trial, where the judge selects a sentence instead of jury. [18] On August 21, 2023, the sentencing phase of the trial began. Davyne Flanagan, sister of Davion Flanagan, asked the court to give Shirilla "the longest possible sentence". Mother of Dominic Russo, Christine Russo, said to Shirilla that she should be "thankful" she is still alive and have a future. Shirilla addressed the families of the victims and said she was sorry, the judge then sentenced her to life in prison with the possibly of parole in 15 years. [19] She got two life in prison terms, one for Russo and second for Flanagan. They are to be served simultaneously, meaning Shirilla will have to serve 15 years before getting parole instead of 30. [20] Russo also permanenty suspended her driver's license. Prosecutor Michael O'Maley said he hopes Shirilla will become a good person when she gets released and that she still has a long life to live. Judge Russo said she doesn't believe her parole will be accepted. [18] [21] Shirilla started crying after hearing the sentence. As she was led out in handcuffs, her supporters in the courtroom shouted that they loved her. [22] After the sentencing, Cuyahoga County Prosecutor's Office released a statement [7] saying that the murder was premeditated and that Shirilla intentionally drove the car at 5:30 a.m. due to the lack of people during such hours. [23]
On September 25, Shirilla's legal team filed an appeal, alleging that there was not enough evidence in the trial for the convictions and that multiple clerical errors were made during the trial. The appeal was denied. [24] They filed a second appeal on April 24, 2025, judge Russo denied it agan due to it being filed "untimely". [25] On May 22, family of Shirilla were interviewed by WKYC, saying that she did the crash unintentionally and should not be imprisoned for murder. [26] Mackenzie Shirilla is currently being held in Ohio Reformatory for Women, [2] her parole hearing is scheduled for 2038. [27]
After the murder, various companies and streaming services made documentaries about the Shirilla. Her case was featured in a podcast titled Hell on Wheels on YouTube, Court TV made a documentary about the murders on YouTube, several videos detailing the case were also uploaded on the platform by content creators. True crime series Killer Cases analysed the case in the Season 4, episode 12 of the series, publishing it on Channel 4 and Apple TV. The case was also discussed by Reddit communities, reportedly attracting attentiion in social media from true-crime fans in 2022. [28] It was also featured in a documentary by Investigation Discovery in 2025 [29] and an op-ed written by Republican politician Armstrong Williams in 2023, which talked about the decline of traditional values in the United States. He said that Shirilla's name had been "etched into the annals of a society". [30]