Mackenzie Shirilla’s father, Steve Shirilla, defended his daughter, arguing that her late friend Davion Flanagan never would have been included in a plot to murder her boyfriend, Dominic Russo.
Steve — who has been vocal in his support of Mackenzie, 21, as she serves two concurrent sentences of 15 years to life for the July 2022 deaths of Russo and Flanagan — detailed his theory during the Wednesday, May 27, episode of True Crime This Week.
“I’ve asked her, ‘Did you do this on purpose?’ And she goes, ‘No,’” Steve said on the podcast, which James Renner hosts. “I would think if my daughter was that mad, that mad at that boy [Russo] to want to kill him that way, Davion would have never been in the car. This makes no sense.”
Steve continued, “Something happened in that car. No one’s ever going to know. She’s innocent of the charges they put upon her.”
Mackenzie was convicted of 12 felony charges, including murder, during a 2023 bench trial after driving her Toyota Camry at approximately 100 mph in Strongsville, Ohio, and hitting a brick wall with Russo and Flanagan in the vehicle.
Mackenzie, who was 17 at the time, was the only one to survive the crash, which is the subject of Netflix’s new documentary The Crash. She has maintained her innocence and claimed she cannot remember the incident.
Steve is also featured in The Crash, which premiered on the streaming service on May 15, showing support for his daughter even when Mackenzie’s marijuana use was explored. (Cannabis was detected in Mackenzie’s system at the time of the incident.)
“I don’t have a problem with her smoking dope,” Steve said in the documentary. “If you’re going to smoke a drug, that’s the one I believe you should take.” The comments resulted in him being put on leave from his art and digital media teaching job at Cleveland’s Mary Queen of Peace School.
Mackenzie recently spoke about her post-prison plans should she ever get an early release. “I’mma be a life coach and stuff,” she told her mom, Natalie Shirilla, during a phone call from the Ohio Reformatory for Women in Marysville, Ohio, according to a Saturday, May 30, report by TMZ. “I’m just going to be everything. I’mma do everything.” (Mackenzie is not eligible for parole until October 2037.)
Records obtained by Us Weekly show that Mackenzie has faced multiple disciplinary actions while in prison, including for a NSFW video call in 2025 during which she allegedly showed her breasts to a visitor who flashed “a dildo sticking out of her pants twice.”
Other alleged incidents included the 2024 possession of altered clothing and four “nude magazine pictures.”
