Mackenzie Shirilla’s father, Steve Shirilla, has defended his daughter, arguing that her late friend Davion Flanagan would’ve never been included in a plot to murder her boyfriend.
Steve, who has been vocal of his support of Mackenzie, 21, as she serves two concurrent sentences of 15 years to life over the July 2022 deaths of boyfriend Dominic Russo and Flanagan, detailed his theory during a 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, hosted by James Renner. “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 during a 2023 bench trial, including murder, when she was 17 years old, after driving her Toyota Camry at over 100 mph in Strongsville, Ohio, and intentionally hitting a brick wall with Russo and Flanagan in the vehicle.
She was the only one to survive the crash, which is the subject of Netflix’s documentary titled The Crash. Mackenzie has maintained her innocence despite the conviction amid claims that she cannot remember the incident.
Steve also features within The Crash, which premiered on the streaming service on May 15, showing support for his daughter even when Mackenzie’s marujuana 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 saw him subsequently put on leave from his art and digital media teaching job at Cleveland’s Mary Queen of Peace School.
Just days ago, Mackenzie spoke about post-prison plans should she ever reach an early release. “I’ma be a life coach and stuff,” she reportedly told her mom, Natalie Shirilla, via phone 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’ma do everything.” (Mackenzie is not eligible for parole until October 2037.)
Amid Mackenzie’s optimism, prison records recently obtained by Us Weekly show that she 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.”
Details of other alleged incidents included the 2024 possession of altered clothing and four “nude magazine pictures.”
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