Mackenzie Shirilla (Strongsville Police Department).
Video from the police body camera depicts law enforcement officers arresting a teenage girl who was later found guilty of murder for intentionally crashing into a wall at speeds reaching up to 100 mph with the intention of killing her boyfriend and another young man.
“Could you please be careful taking this one off so it doesn’t break the bracelet,” Mackenzie Shirilla said as an officer began to switch handcuffs.
An Ohio court judge reached a verdict in August 2023 after a bench trial, convicting the girl on multiple charges, including murder, for the deaths of her boyfriend Dominic Russo, aged 20, and Davion Flanagan, aged 19.
Footage from surveillance cameras captured the moment when the now 20-year-old girl, identified as Shirilla, took a deliberate turn from Pearl Road onto Alameda Drive before accelerating down the three-quarter mile street and crashing into a brick wall.
Russo and Flanagan died. Shirilla survived, stuck in the driver’s seat.
Surveillance footage was the key evidence.
“The video clearly shows the purpose and intent of the defendant,” Judge Nancy Margaret Russo (no relation to Dominic) said in WKYC footage. “She chose a course of death and destruction that day.”
Whether Shirilla intended to kill herself too was a matter of speculation and irrelevant to evaluating the evidence at hand, Russo said. The judge ruled that the defendant, whose actions were “controlled, methodical, deliberate, intentional, and purposeful,” meant to kill the young men.
She was sentenced to life in prison, with the possibility of parole after 15 years. At sentencing, however, Judge Russo voiced doubt that Shirilla will get out after 15 years. She agreed with the prosecution, who maintained the defendant showed a “shocking lack of remorse.”
For example, before the charges were brought, Shirilla attended a concert in her wheelchair while recovering from the crash.
Shirilla maintained her innocence in court, even shaking her head during victim impact statements when Dominic Russo’s mother, Christine Russo, took her to task.
“No one wanted this to be a murder, or to punish Mackenzie Shirilla for this accident, but this was not a car accident,” Christine Russo said in court. “The evidence and science proved that Mackenzie Shirilla murdered my son Dominic as well as Davion.”
