Mackenzie Shirilla opened up about her concerns for the future during a phone call from behind bars, revealing that she is afraid she won’t “be able to have kids” because she would be “old” when she’s released.
In the undated jail call between her and her mother, Natalie Shirilla, Mackenzie, 21, discussed the hard realities of life in Cuyahoga County Jail. She is currently serving two concurrent life sentences in Ohio Reformatory for Women after her boyfriend, Dominic Russo, and their friend, Davion Flanagan, died in a car crash while she was behind the wheel in July 2022.
During the phone call, which was obtained by People, Mackenzie said she “doesn’t want to live here with these people,” referencing her fellow inmates that Natalie called “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,” Natalie responded.
Later in the conversation, Mackenzie told her mother she hoped her parents wouldn’t have to sell their house. She then continued to express her vulnerabilities by sharing 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 s**t like that,” she said.
After Natalie told Mackenzie to not “go there,” Mackenzie responded, “I know, it’s hard not to.”
“So just wait, OK?” Natalie said.
In July 2022, Mackenzie drove a car with Russo, 20, and Flanagan, 19, in it going 100 mph into a brick building in Strongsville, Ohio. She was convicted of 12 felony charges during a 2023 trial, which included murder, felonious assault and aggravated vehicular homicide.
Mackenzie’s story was shared in Netflix’s May documentary The Crash, in which she appeared from behind bars as she expressed her remorse for the crime.
During the documentary, she speculated that her diagnosed medical condition, particularly postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), caused the fatal crash.
After the documentary was released, former inmate Mary Katherine Crowder opened up about what Mackenzie was really like behind bars.
“When she walked out in the documentary, my jaw literally dropped, because her demeanor and the way that she looked was nothing like the person I was in there with,” Crowder, 27, told The New York Post in an interview published on Wednesday, May 20.
Crowder then claimed that Shirilla embraced a “Mean Girls” persona while behind bars. Mackenzie allegedly embraced a full glam look and often wore makeup and cute outfits, which Crowder claimed she afforded with the help of her parents and the sugar daddies she met online.
In addition to speaking with the outlet, Crowder also made claims about what Mackenzie was like in prison in a series of TikTok videos.
“Yes, Mackenzie has had multiple girlfriends … she was walking around with hickies on her neck,” Crowder claimed in one clip. “She’s gone to ‘the hole’ [solitary confinement] for being intimate with girls in prison.”
Crowder also questioned Mackenzie’s remorse for the killings. “If she was grieving or remorseful, she would not have gone to prison and jumped into prison relationships over the next six months,” she said.
