In the undated call obtained by PEOPLE, Mackenzie Shirilla discusses the realities of life behind bars in the Cuyahoga County Jail following her double-murder conviction
NEED TO KNOW
- Mackenzie Shirilla discusses life behind bars in a newly obtained jail call with her mother, Natalie Shirilla
- In the undated call, recorded while she was housed at the Cuyahoga County Jail, she expressed fears about her future, including concerns that she may never be able to have children if she is eventually released
- Renewed attention on her case follows the release of Netflix’s The Crash, which examines the 2022 car crash that killed her boyfriend and friend while she was behind the wheel
Mackenzie Shirilla talks about her life behind bars in a newly obtained jail call with her mother, Natalie Shirilla, including fears that she won’t “be able to have kids” if she’s eventually released from prison.
In the undated call obtained by PEOPLE, Mackenzie discusses the realities of life behind bars in the Cuyahoga County Jail following her double-murder conviction and says she “doesn’t want to live here with these people,” referencing being surrounded by what her mother described as “murderers [and] kidnappers.”
“But anyway, since you have to spend time there, we all knew you were going to anyway, it doesn’t sound so, so bad,” her mother says.
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Later in the conversation, Mackenzie tells her mother she hopes her parents don’t have to sell their house, and then she opens up about her fears for the future.
“I feel like I want to live off the grid, like, and I’m just — I’m just I’m thinking about like how I’m just gonna be like old when I get out of jail and like, I don’t know, like I’m not gonna be able to have kids or like a family and sh– like that,” she says.
Her mother later responds, “Don’t go there,” to which Mackenzie says, “I know, it’s hard not to.”
“So just wait, OK?” her mother replies.
Renewed attention has been placed on Shirilla’s case following the Friday, May 15, release of the Netflix documentary The Crash.
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Mackenzie, now 21, is currently serving two concurrent sentences of 15 years to life in prison after being convicted of murder, vehicular homicide and other charges connected to the July 2022 deaths of her 20-year-old boyfriend, Dominic Russo, and the couple’s friend, 19-year-old Davion Flanagan.
Prosecutors argued during Mackenzie’s 2023 bench trial that she intentionally crashed her sedan into a brick wall in Strongsville, Ohio, at nearly 100 mph after her relationship with Russo had become strained. Although she was 17 at the time, she was tried as an adult. The judge in her case described her in court as “literal hell on wheels.”
Mackenzie and her family have always maintained she suffered a medical episode and that the crash was an accident. She will become eligible for parole in 2037.
“There was no intent whatsoever there,” Mackenzie said in the documentary. “I have excessive amounts of remorse for Dominic, Davion [and] both of their families.”
