A woman who was locked up with Mackenzie Shirilla described the convicted killer as the “princess of the prison” who showed no “remorse” – completely different from the image she presented in Netflix’s The Crash.
Mackenzie Shirilla was 17 when she slammed her Toyota Camry into a brick wall in Strongsville, Ohio, in July 2022, killing her boyfriend, 20-year-old Dominic Russo, and their friend, 19-year-old Davion Flanagan.
Prosecutors argued during her 2023 trial that the crash was intentional, saying Shirilla drove nearly 100 mph directly into the wall after tensions developed in her relationship with Russo. Data recovered from the vehicle showed the accelerator remained pressed until impact.
“She morphs from a responsible driver to literal hell on wheels as she makes her way down the street,” Judge Russo said after viewing the crash video, per CBS affiliate 19 News. “She had a mission and she executed it with precision.”
Shirilla denied deliberately causing the crash and claimed she blacked out before the collision.
But the judge rejected that explanation while delivering her verdict.
“This was not reckless driving. This was murder,” the judge said during sentencing.
According to People, Russo also described called Shirilla’s actions “controlled, methodical, deliberate, intentional and purposeful.”
Shirilla, now 21, was convicted on multiple charges, including murder, and is now serving two concurrent sentences of 15 years to life at the Ohio Reformatory for Women.
She’s eligible for parole in 2037.
Netflix doc puts case back in spotlight
Interest in the case surged again after Netflix released The Crash, which featured Shirilla speaking publicly about the deadly collision and its aftermath.
“There was no intent whatsoever there,” Shirilla claimed in the documentary.
“I have excessive amounts of remorse for Dominic, Davion [and] both of their families.”
But Kat Crowder, a former inmate who says she spent six months locked up with Shirilla, claims the version viewers saw onscreen did not match the woman she knew in prison.
“When Mackenzie first walked out in the documentary, my jaw dropped because that was not the person that I saw in prison when I was with her,” Crowder told NewsNation.
According to Crowder, Shirilla never appeared emotionally weighed down by the deaths of Russo and Flanagan.
“It was never this dark, smug, tough girl act that was in this video trying to portray some sort of remorse…from my observations, there was never any, you know, behaviors that looked like somebody who was remorseful,” she said in her interview with the outlet.
Wants to join prison ‘cool kids’
Crowder later shared additional claims in TikTok videos discussing life inside prison with Shirilla, who she described as “very bright-faced, very girly” – or a “prison wanna-be Kylie Jenner.”
“Mackenzie did not walk around that prison yard thinking about those lost loved ones that she claimed to think about every single day.” Crowder said in one clip, explaining that Shirilla wants to be “the princess of the prison.”
“She walks around thinking she’s going to get out.”
Crowder, 27, also claimed Shirilla was focused heavily on fitting in “with the cool kids”
“When I was in there with Mackenzie, all she cared about was doing her makeup, walking around in the yard with her one or two friends that were also very similar to her: young girls, social media influencer wannabes, thinking that it was a high school popularity contest.”
According to Crowder, Shirilla also appeared to have access to more commissary items than many inmates around her – courtesy of her “crazy” mother, and “sugar daddies.”
“Mackenzie had everything you can imagine in prison and more. All the makeup, all the limited item stuff that you had to buy, Mackenzie had it, her mom enabled her.”
‘Mean girl’
While discussing Shirilla’s behavior in her conversation with NewsNation, Crowder compared her to one of pop culture’s most recognizable “mean girl” characters.
“I do say that she wanted to be like Regina George,” Crowder said.
“I mean, just the way that she did her makeup, the way that she, I mean, it was like she was going out to a club or something.”
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