Following the release of the documentary about Mackenzie Shirilla’s case, attention has turned to her parents and the role they may have played in enabling their daughter’s reckless behavior.
In July, 2022, police were alerted to Mackenzie’s crashed vehicle in the Cleveland suburb of Strongsville.
The jailed woman, then 17 years old, was the sole survivor of the crash. The two other passengers, Mackenzie’s boyfriend, Dominic Russo, 20, and their friend Davion Flanagan, 19, were pronounced deceased at the scene.
A former friend of Mackenzie Shirilla claims her parents enabled years of violent behavior before the fatal crash
Image credits: Netflix
Mackenzie is currently serving two 15-years-to-life sentences after being found guilty of intentionally crashing the vehicle at 100 mph.
A middle school friend has now told The Post that Mackenzie had displayed violent behavior since childhood.
Jaina Maynard claimed the 21-year-old constantly mistreated her parents, who did little to assert authority and reprimand her.
Image credits: Netflix
“Kenzie runs the show — she runs her parents,” the former friend said. “They shouldn’t have been her friend. They should have been her parents.
“From what I see, they didn’t really care about her. They cared more to have her approval.”
She recalled that Mackenzie’s mother, Natalie, “seemed like one of the girls” instead of acting like a mother.
Image credits: Cuyahoga County Prosecutor’s Office
According to Maynard, the roles were reversed in Mackenzie’s relationship with Natalie, with the daughter constantly telling off her mother and expecting her to obey her orders.
“Whatever Kenzie says, her mom just does,” the former friend summarized, describing the convicted 21-year-old as “really emotionally and verbally ab*sive to her mother.”
She recalled a specific instance in which Natalie was driving a group of Mackenzie’s friends to a haunted house when they were in eighth grade.
Image credits: Netflix
“Kenzie said word for word, ‘Mom, shut the f** up.’ And guess what? Her mom shut the f**k up,” Maynard told The Post. “She was so, so nice after Kenzie just treated her like utter sh*t.”
When speaking with her friends in middle school, Mackenzie allegedly called her mother “so effing annoying” and “a b*tch.”
Maynard recalled that Mackenzie began taking narcotics in middle school with her parents’ knowledge.
“She would go home and immediately sit in front of the camera, light her bong up and dance in front of the camera and post the videos,” she said.
Image credits: Netflix
When Mackenzie became a teenager, her parents enabled and excused even more reckless behavior, Maynard said.
“They knew that their daughter was driving and sm*king w**d and speeding,” she said. “Her mom literally follows her on social media and Kenzie would post this freely.”
The criminal’s former friend described her as “the definition of a spoiled brat” and claimed her materialistic personality often led her to mistreat her family.
“Her parents have done everything for her since she was a little kid, and she’s just badmouthing her parents every chance she can get because they won’t buy her the next collection of Bape hoodies.”
Still, it was rare for her parents to tell her no, and Mackenzie was always dressed in “nice clothes, all the new shoes, the nice bags.”
Then, Mackenzie’s boyfriend, Dominic, took on that role and began “providing for her,” Maynard said.
At the time of the crash, the high school students had been dating for four years and were living together.
Image credits: Instagram/mackenzieshirilla
Prosecutors concluded that Mackenzie drove her car into a brick wall to take Dominic’s life and that, in her eyes, Davion was a necessary second fatality to carry out her plan.
Evidence included surveillance footage from the scene and an analysis of the vehicle’s black box, which showed Mackenzie had accelerated into the wall and never hit the brakes.
Additionally, blood tests revealed that Mackenzie had not consumed any hard substances that could have impaired her driving in the hours before the crash.
A recently revealed text message shows that Dominic allegedly sent Mackenzie a breakup text weeks before he lost his life.
“This was not reckless driving,” the judge stated, as seen in the Netflix documentary The Crash, released on May 15. “This was m*rder…[Mackenzie Shirilla] morphs from a responsible driver to literal hell on wheels.”
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Mackenzie admitted to driving the car and causing the fatal crash but insisted that she passed out due to a medical emergency and has no recollection of the events leading up to the tragedy.
On August 14, 2023, she was found guilty of m*rder, felonious as*ault, and aggravated vehicular homicide.
Steve Shirilla said there is “no evidence” showing that his daughter acted with prior calculation
Mackezie’s parents have maintained her innocence, with her father, Steve, telling NBC News, “There’s no evidence that you can show me that says prior calculation, intent. There’s nothing.”
Maynard further accused Mackezie of “severely tormenting” their middle school classmates.
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Image credits: Netflix
She claimed the “hell on wheels” driver told a girl to harm herself, and that the incident led the girl to check herself into a mental facility and leave the Strongsville school district.
Other reports claim Mackenzie exhibits arrogant behavior at the Ohio Reformatory for Women in Marysville, where she is incarcerated, and shows no remorse for taking two young lives.
Image credits: Strongsville Police Department
“She walked around like she was this famous person within prison,” said former inmate Mary Katherine Crowder, who spent time with the convict.
“She definitely carried herself like she was the Regina George of prison … she was very much like an ‘It girl,’” she added, referencing the self-absorbed Mean Girls character.
Image credits: Netflix
The 21-year-old will not be eligible for parole until 2037.
On April 27, her attorneys filed an appeal with the Ohio Supreme Court. They stated that there is “medical evidence” to prove their client “suffered from a pre-existing medical condition that could have caused her to black out while driving.”
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