Why Mackenzie Shirilla’s Deadly Car Crash Was Ruled a Murder

On July 31, 2022, around 5:30 a.m., Mackenzie Shirilla, then 17, accelerated her Toyota Camry to 100 mph and drove head-on into a commercial brick building in Strongsville, Ohio. Dominic Russo, Shirilla’s 20-year-old boyfriend, and their friend Davion Flanagan, 19, were also in the car. All three had marijuana in their systems at the time of the crash, and both young men were killed immediately. Shirilla suffered significant injuries, but survived.

It took a trial to reveal whether Shirilla’s behavior was a purposeful act of murder or a horrific accident. Shirilla was charged with four counts of murder, four counts of felonious assault, two counts of aggravated vehicular homicide, one count of drug possession and one count of possessing criminal tools.

At the time of the crash, Shirilla was a recent graduate of Strongsville High School. She and Russo had been dating for four years and were living together. But things were far from perfect; the couple was frequently on the rocks and they experienced “significant fighting” leading up to the crash, according to court documents. These fights allegedly involved Shirilla threatening and hitting Russo, per the court docs.

Russo’s mother also said that in the six months leading up to the crash, there had been escalating “arguments,” “breakups” and “threats,” and that Shirilla had become “more possessive” of Russo. In one instance, Shirilla was heard saying, “I’m going to wreck this car right now,” while Russo was riding in the car with her. Video captured in July 2022—uncovered after Russo died—also contains audio of Shirilla threatening to force her way into Russo’s house.

On the night before the crash, Shirilla, Flanagan and Russo had attended a number of parties. Data from a phone app shows that Shirilla, Russo and Flanagan left a friend’s house around 5:30 a.m. when, just minutes after getting in the car, Shirilla began to accelerate in speed, ultimately driving into a brick building at almost 100 mph. The three friends weren’t discovered for another 45 minutes, when a good Samaritan stumbled across the crime scene and called for help. Russo and Flanagan were pronounced dead at the scene.

After the crash, text messages revealed that Shirilla told Russo’s mom per court docs that she didn’t remember anything about the crash: “I remember turning onto the street, and then my vision fades to black. It really kills me not to be able to remember anything. I promise you I would tell you.”

At Shirilla’s trial—where she was tried as an adult—prosecutors presented evidence that the relationship between Shirilla and Russo was “toxic,” citing Shirilla’s threats against her boyfriend two weeks prior to the crash and comments about purposefully wrecking her car with him in it.

“We put plenty of that sort of evidence in front of the judge,” Tim Troup of the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor’s Office told Cleveland's WKYC following the verdict. “There is no doubt that this happened because of the relationship with Dominic, and the defendant’s intent was clearly to end that, and she took everybody that was in the car with her.”

Mark Sargent, a certified forensic mechanic expert for Fire and Explosions Consultants, testified that the accelerator pedal was being pressed down at full force but that at no point had Shirilla attempted to brake. (The speed limit was 35 mph where she was driving.)

“The case is an example of killing with the use of a car, which is uncommon, but falls as intimate partner violence,” Kasey Klenda, attorney-at-law and partner at Shull & Klenda, tells A&E Crime + Investigation. “Firearms, sharp objects and force are often used in the majority of [these] cases, and a high-speed crash is evidence of intention rather than impulse. The question is about intent. Speeding, not braking and prior statements made are what prosecutors looked [at] to show the case was intentional rather than reckless, which is important for a murder conviction.”

Florida-based attorney David Weisselberger tells A&E Crime + Investigation that the prosecutors' intent case fully hinged on data from the vehicle: there was no skidding, no avoidance and no slowing before the impact.

“The car's event data recorder confirmed [Shirilla] never applied the brakes, and a lack of reaction was what distinguished this case from an accident in the eyes of the court,” he says. “Under Ohio law, a vehicle becomes a murder weapon the moment a driver uses it with intent to cause serious harm or death. Prosecutors did not need to prove she planned this days in advance, they only needed to show she made a conscious choice not to stop.”

When sentencing Shirilla, Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Nancy Margaret Russo pronounced that it was not a case of reckless driving. “This was murder,” she said.

Russo—no relation to Shirilla’s boyfriend—continued, "She morphs from a responsible driver to literal hell on wheels as she makes her way down the street. Mackenzie alone made the decision to drive the car, to drive an obscure route... Mackenzie alone chose a time to make the drive, early in the morning, when any reasonable person would expect few people would be nearby to witness it or offer life-saving assistance."

Shirilla, then 19, was sentenced in August 2023 to life in prison with eligibility of parole after 15 years. She is currently serving her sentence at Ohio Reformatory for Women, with her earliest possible parole date listed as October 29, 2037.

In 2024, Shirilla appealed her case, but her preliminary conviction was upheld. The following February, Shirilla’s legal team filed an appeal with the Ohio Supreme Court; in April, the Ohio Supreme Court declined to hear the case. Then in March 2026, the Ohio’s Eighth District Court of Appeals upheld the trial court’s decision to deny Shirilla’s appeal, ruling that it was submitted one day past the 365-day jurisdictional deadline.