Hell On Wheels: Makenzie Shirilla’s 100 MPH Murder

0:20 Hey everyone, welcome back to Exposed. I'm your host, Jim Chapman, and today I have a podcast for you that you may think you are already familiar with. Netflix's top documentary as of this recording is titled The Crash, and it tells the horrific story of a crash that claimed the lives of two young males in the eventual conviction of a young lady by the name of Mackenzie Shirilla. Now, much like many of you may have, I watched it, but I was already familiar with this case. I had this one in the files waiting to be recorded, and when I watched this documentary, much like documentaries, they leave a lot of things out as it relates to the details.

1:05 This case would be no different. So I decided to go ahead and record this one. And I do need to say, hey, Netflix did a great job with it. They just didn't cover everything and they didn't go in depth on some things that I felt like they should have. So with that, I'm going to give you the story as I wrote it, and I'm going to give you my opinions on the verdicts and all of that stuff. So let's get into it and I'm going to take you to Strongsville, Ohio, which is a quiet, tight knit Cleveland suburb where people still get waved at on their front porch. Friday night football is basically a religion. It is typical small town America. Now in a middle class home on one of those tree lined streets, in August of two thousand and four, Natalie and Steve Sirilla. They welcome their second choin, a baby girl they named Mackenzie, and she arrives healthy, loud, full of life, and big sister Daniella is there to help welcome her, and from day one the Sherilla house it feels like the kind of place she would see in every classic American coming of age story. Her dad, Steve, he is an art and digital media teacher, and he filled the home with the creativity that you would expect from someone like that and the color that you would expect from an artist.

2:32 And Natalie, she would create that steady heartbeat of family life. Barbecues in the backyard, school plays, weekend bike rides around the neighborhood, the shrillas. They wanted to give their daughters the kind of stable, loving upbringing that most parents would dream of. Providing in Strongville itself. It was the perfect backdrop. Good schools, safe streets, a real sense of community in the area. Kind of reminds me of where I live and kids that grew up knowing their neighbors. Kids would go to the same high schools their parents had attended, and Mackenzie was right at home in that world. Family and friends would later describe her as outgoing, athletic and socially magnetic, the kind of girl who makes friends easily, laughs loud, and throws herself into whatever activity may be happening at the time. No major red flags, no dramatic trauma, just a normal Ohio kid navigating the ordinary ups and downs of childhood. Now by elementary school, Mackenzie was growing into the kind of girl you'd see at Eddie School carnival, every soccer game, every neighborhood block party. She was protective of her friends wall to a fault, already showing a strong willed streak that her parents would sometimes laugh about.

4:00 Steve would later say she had big dreams even as a kid. He said, she was always creating, always performing, always imagining a bigger stage for herself. And Natalie made sure the girls had structure, homework, none chores, finished, family dinners around the table. It was a kind of upbringing that, at least on paper, should have produced a well adjusted teenager with a bright future, And for a while, that's exactly what it looked like. Mackenzie moved through middle school the same way most kids in Strongsville did, making friends, joining activities, posting silly selfies. As social media started to creep into her world and the world and she was part of the same large, overlapping friend group that included a boy named Dominique Russo. Now they knew each other the way everyone in a suburb that sized as each other.

4:56 Same hallways, same football games, same summer hangout. It's nothing dramatic, just two kids from the same zip code whose paths kept crossing, although Dominique was three years older than she was now. On the surface, Mackenzie Shrilla's early life looked textbook normal, loving parents seen, stable home, no criminal record, no history of violence or serious behavior issues, and psychologists who study these cases they often point out something important. Sometimes the most dangerous storms start in the comma's waters, because even in the most ordinary households and childhoods, certain personality traits can quietly take rout, and Mackenzie was described as someone who felt things deeply loyalty that bordered on intensity, emotions that would run hot, a need for connection that could feel all consuming, and in a small town where everyone knows everyone, those traits might look like passion or devotion.

6:04 But when you mix that with teenage hormones, first loves, pressure to keep a relationship alive at all costs, those traits can lead to something much more volatile. So Steve and Natalie Shirolla they raised their daughter with the same hopes every parents have. She would graduate, chase her dreams, maybe become that social media influencer she had always talked about, find someone who loved her the way that she loved. They had no way of knowing that one of those neighborhood kids, Dominique Russo, would later become the center of her world in a way that would ultimately change everything.

6:48 So for now, just kind of sit there with this image, a bright eyed little girl on a bike in the streets of Strongville, wind in her hair, laughing with the kids she grew up with, completely unaware that the ordinary life she was living was quietly setting the stage for something no one in that tech knick community could have imagined. That girl didn't become hell on wheels overnight, but every friendship formed, every emotion felt deeply, every bond she refused to let go of. Those moments were stacking up like kindling, and the match was waiting just a few years down the road. So by middle school, that ordinary Ohio girl, she was already forming the bond that would define her teen years and ultimately lead to tragedy. And let's go to Strongsville High School in the early twenty tens, the kind of high school where Friday night lights still ruled, everyone knew everyone else's business, and Mackenzie Shirilla. She walked those hallways the way many teens from that area did, confident, social, surrounded by a big, overlapping circle of She was popular without trying too hard. She was athletic, quick with a smile, and like many of the teens from that era, she was a girl who posted fun Snapchat stories and showed up to every football game. Teachers would remember her as engaged no major disciplinary problems, just to another face in

8:19 the yearbook, smiling beside the marching band or the soccer team. But underneath that normal teenage spirit, something deeper was taken root. So around age thirteen, that's when Mackenzie's path crossed more seriously with that boy three years older, Dominique Russo. He was sixteen at this time, already driving, already part of that same extended friend group, that hung out at the same parties, the same bonfires, and that relationship quickly became intense. They were on again, off again from the very beginning. They break up over some teamage draw, swear it was over, then find their way back to each other within days or weeks. Friends would later describe it as the classic high school roller coaster. Passionate, dramatic, and impossible to ignore.

9:14 And I would imagine we've all been there, right, your first teenage crush. You swear it's love, but you're young, and you don't realize until you're much older that you have no idea how to deal with the emotions actually involved in that. That's where she and Dominique were at now. By the time Mackenzie was fifteen Dominique was eighteen, the relationship had become the center of her world. They spent nearly every free moment together when they fought and they fought often the makeups were just as explosive. Dominique's family would later tell investigators about the constant cycle, screaming matches in the driveway doors, slamming Mackenzie, begging him not to leave, Dominique, trying to create space. Mackenzie, by all accounts, felt things with a depth that was absolutely overwhelming her. She didn't just like Dominique, she needed him in a way that blurred the line between love and the fear of being alone.

10:24 Jim, did you see what happened in Texas today? Wait before you tell me that, let me tell you what happened in New York. It cannot be as crazy as the case I told you about yesterday in Louisiana. You know what, we should do a podcast about it, And. With that we did. Crime War Weekly covers the crime news headlines that have dominated the week. We cover trending crimes from all over the country and even sprinkle in a few globally. Crime War Weekly is available now wherever you listen to your podcasts. Simply by searching Crime War Weekly or clicking the link in the description of this podcast. Court testimony would later reveal text and messages showing her panic during breakups. Please don't leave me. I can't do this without you. You're my everything. And Dominique he was caught between ten age independence and her intensity, and he would pull away, only to be drawn back by the same magnetic pull. Now, keep in mind, Dominique was much older. Doesn't sound like three years is a whole lot older, But you have to think about it this way. Eighteen and fifteen or two totally different worlds, right, he was much more mature.

11:42 And there were recordings of one particular fight they had that Netflix. If you watch that series, they played it on that series where you can really get a good sense of that. Mackenzie shows up at a door, she's pissed, she's making threats to end the relationship if Dominique doesn't answer that door. And his response was, I'm not letting you in my house if we're arguing like this. And that is the difference, y'all. That's the difference right there between eighteen and fifteen. And I feel like it's an important aspect of what is going to occur later. So in twenty twenty one, when Mackenzie was still seventeen and technically a minor, the two took a step most parents' dread.

12:30 They move in together, and it wasn't some glamorous apartment. It was a modest place in the Strongsville area, and it had a bit of a chaotic energy that you may expect from two young people playing house before they were really ready, Natalie and Steve Shrilla. They had their concerns, but like many parents facing a headstrong team in love, they tried to support her while keeping an eye on things. Now, I would like to say, that's not what I would have done, and I'm pretty confident that's not what I would have done, But I gotta be honest. I've never been in that situation with my girls, and thankfully they're all adults now on my children. But I have two girls and I've never thankfully been in that position, So I'm not trying to judge them on that. So what her parents couldn't see, really, what no one outside of the relationship could fully see, was how the volatility was quietly escalating. Arguments would grow louder claims of mutual pushing and shoffing with surface later in police reports. Dominique's family would describe Mackenzie as controlling, jealous, terrified of abandonment. Mackenzie's side would paint Dominique as distant, pulling away, making her feel worthless. And the truth, as it so often is in these toxic teen romances, probably live somewhere in the middle.

13:56 Two young people who cared deeply, but they had no tool rules to handle that fire that they had lit. Although I will say of the two, Dominique seemed much more mature, which he's three years older, he should be more mature, and it makes sense so at this point the social circle around them is also widening. Mackenzie and Dominique were rarely alone. Their group included Davion Flanagan, who was a fun loving nineteen year old teenager who became one of Dominique's closest friends. And Davion was kind of the life of the party, very outgoing, always cracking jokes, athletic guy, the guy who kept the vibe light when things would get heavy, and the three of them in a rotating cast of other friends. They would party together regularly in marijuana and shrooms were part of that scene.

14:51 They'd hang out, they'd smoke weed occasionally, a psychedelic taught fight, make up, repeat the cycle, not a good recipe though right now. What almost no one realized at the time was that Mackenzie also developed a pattern behind the wheel. Court records would later reveal black box data from her twenty eighteen Tota camery showing multiple high speed drives on the very same roads around Strongsville, including Progress Drive, which is the stretch that would become infamous. She liked the thrill, friends would say. Friends would also describe her as quote Hell on wheels long before the tragedy, a nickname that started as a joke about her lead foot driving but carried a darker edge as her relationship strained. Now. Dominiqua tried to break things off more than once in the final months. He was talking about moving on. He was talking about needing more space, about a future that didn't include constant drama, and Mackenzie. She sensed the end and grew more desperate, more possessive, more determined to keep him close.

16:03 So imagine this late nights in that shared apartment, the air kind of thick, with the smell of weed and unspoken tension. Mackenzie scrawling through old photos of the two of them on her cellphone, her heart racing every time dominiques phone with buzz with the text from someone else, and Dominique sitting there trying to breathe, trying to step back, only to be pulled back into the same embrace. The push and pull of first love at its most extreme, the kind of intensity that feels romantic in movies but becomes suffocating in real life. Teenagers don't have the life experience to recognize when passion crosses into obsession. They don't know the fear of losing someone can at the wrong moment, turn into something much more destructive. One more fight, one more tearful reconciliation, one more promise that this time it's going to be different. That's how the final chapter began with these two. By the summer of twenty twenty two, Mackenzie seventeen, Dominique was twenty, and their four year on and off saga had reached an absolute breaking point. The group was still partying, they were still smoking marijuana, still acting like the future with something that happened to other people, but the clock was ticking down. On the morning of

17:34 July thirty first, and on that morning, July thirty first, twenty twenty two, that volatile teen love story reached its horrific climax. The drive began as a ride home that would end in the two deaths of young men in a murder charge for Mackenzie. It was just after five am a party in Strongsville was finally aver Mackenzie, at this time seventeen years old, behind the wheel of that twenty eighteen Toyota Camery. In the passenger seat sat her boyfriend of four years, Dominique Russo, twenty years old, and in the backseat close friend Davion Flanagan, who was nineteen.

18:16 At this time, The trio had been gathering for hours. Witnesses would later describe the night as typical for their groups, smoking weed, talking, the usual mix of flirting and bickering. Mackenzie and Dominique had been in one of their classic cycles, fighting, making up, fighting again. Dominique had been pulling away more and more in the recent weeks. He wanted space, he was talking about moving on, and Mackenzie, terrified of losing him for good, had been holding on tighter than ever. That morning, the three of them climbed into that Toyota Camery for what should have been a short, familiar drive home.

18:58 Mackenzie pulled out of the driveway, turned on the quiet suburban streets, and everything seemed normal. At first. You can see the vehicle turn make a controlled right turn onto progress drive a straight industrial road lined with warehouses and businesses. Now the speed limit was thirty five miles per hour, and for the first few seconds she stayed close to that. Then in one terrifying instant, everything changed. The black box requarter inside of that Camry provided the data in chilling precise detail. At five seventeen am, Mackenzie preuss accelerator to the floor, the engine roared. The Camray surged from thirty five miles per hour to ninety eight miles per hour in under six seconds. No break lights, no swerving to avoid anything. The steering wheel inputs were steady and deliberate and aimed at a large brick building that sat at the end of the road like a wall. Stop signs would flash by in a blur. A business sign shattered upon impact, and then the crash. The Toyota Camery slammed into a solid brick wall at nearly one hundred miles per hour. The front end crumpled like paper. Air bags exploded, glass and metal flew in every single direction. Dominique Russo

20:28 in the passenger seat, took the full force of the impact. Davon Flannagan in the back he never had a chance. Both young men were pronounced dead at the scene, and Mackenzie Shrilla, the driver. She was critically injured but alive. When first responders arrived, they found something eerily symbolic. One of Mackenzie's fuzzy Prada slippers had come off her foot and was wedged firmly against that accelerator pedal, exactly where it would have been if she deliberately kept her foot pressed down instead of trying to break. In the hours that followed, the Strongsville community they wake up to this horror.

21:11 Two beloved local boys gone in an instant. Dominique Garuso, twenty year old who loved music, basketball, in making people laugh. He had dreams of the future, beyond the drama, beyond the fighting. Davean Flanagan, the nineteen year old jokester who lit up every room. He walked into the friend who always had your back. Their families were shattered. Mackenzie was rushed to the hospital serious injuries. At first, many assumed this was a tragic accident. Maybe she was a tired team, maybe she was impaired by the marijuana, but the black box data would eventually tell a different story. Full throttle, no breaking steering inputs experts would later describe as consistent with someone aiming the car like a weapon. Toxicology reports confirmed marijuana in Mackenzie's system, but none at the levels that would explain away the deliberate acceleration. This girl was used to smoking weed and if anything that would cause deceleration, not acceleration. Prosecutors would later argue this was no accident, this was a mission of death. They painted a picture of a young woman consumed by fear of abandonment who saw the final breakup coming and decided if she couldn't have Dominique, no one would. The hell on Wheel's nickname that her friends had once used as a joke about her driving fast, suddenly took on a darker, more literal meaning.

22:47 Court documents would reveal a pattern. Mackenzie had driven the same stretch of progress drive at high speeds before she knew exactly what she was doing and where she was going. When she floored it. The defense, they would push back hard. They argued it was a horrible impulsive accident, possibly worsened by disorientation from drugs or the emotional turmoil from the night Mackenzie had been through a violatile relationship. Maybe in that split second she panicked or lost control. They pointed to her own injuries, her survival, the fact that no one had ever seen her violent before, But the evidence was overwhelming. The black box told the story in cold, undeniable numbers. The slipper on the gas pedal, the lack of any attempt to steerway or break, the history of high speed driving on that exact same road, and the moss of testimony about the toxic pushing pool between Mackenzie and Dominique. The texts, the fights, the desperation. It all pointed to one horrific conclusion. This was not just speeding.

24:03 This was intentional. A seventeen year old girl had used a vehicle as a weapon in the ultimate act of If I can't have you, no one can now. Teenage love can be intense, we all know that. But when the intensity mixes with drugs, with a history of volatility, with a car capable of one hundred miles per hour, the results they can be catastrophic. Mackenzie Shirilla. She didn't set out that night planning to become a headline, but in those few terrifying seconds on Progress Drive, she crossed the line that you can't uncross. Two young men who still had their whole lives ahead of them were gone, a community was left reeling, and a seventeen year old girl went from being the survivor of a crash to the accused driver in a murder trial. So at this point, these two young men are gone in the nation watch as a seventeen year old girl, she did go from victim to accused murderer. Now the court room would decide her fate. The arrest came fast. Mackenzie Shirolla was taken into custody upon her recovery and was being tried as an adult, and by the time the indictment dropped it was staggering twelve separate counts, four counts of murder, four counts of fellonous assault, two counts of aggravative vehicular homicide, plus drug possession and possessing criminal tools. The Fazzi Prada

25:38 slipper that had been wedged on that accelerator was now logged into evidence as Exhibit one. Mackenzie would appear in court looking small and shaken. The same girl who once posted carefree selfies from Strongsville parties was now wearing an orange jumpsuit and staring at the floor. Her parents and Steve sat behind her every single day, their faces etched with disbelief in grief. Dominique Russo and Davion Flanagan families sat on the other side of the aisle, their pain raw and unrelenting. The divide in that courtroom was as wide as the brick wall on Progress Drive. There's no doubt about it. The case moved to a bench trial in twenty twenty three. No Jerry, just Judge Nancy Margaret Russo presiding in court. And this is my first issue.

26:32 I think this was a horrible decision for the defense. I mean, it's a heck of a lot easier to convince one of twelve people of your innocence than one of one. It was just a really bizarre decision to me. A lot of people speculate out there that Mackenzie thought it would be easier to manipulate one person, that being the judge, than twelve people, but the odds were not in her favor. There's no doubt about that in my opinion. So from the opening statements it was clear this would be a battle of narratives. Prosecutor Brian McDonagh laid out the state's theory with cold precision. This was not an accident.

27:13 This was a deliberate mission of death. He walked the court through the black box data, second by second, the control turned, the sudden, full throttle acceleration, the complete absence of breaking, the steering inputs that aimed that camera like a missile. Relationship. Witnesses would take the stand and describe the toxic four year roller coaster relationship, the desperate texts, the fear of abandonment, the fights that had escalated right up to that final night. If I can't have you, no one will, the prosecution argued, was the unspoken motive that turned this cord into a weapon. In the defense, led by Attorney John Parker, they fought back with the equal passion. They called it a tragic impulse accident, sleep deprived teenager reacting in the worst possible way after a night of partying. They highlighted McKenzie's own serious injuries, and they said this was a horrible mistake by a young woman who never intended to kill anyone. This was not murder.

28:18 So I have a lot of issues with that, primarily the evidence doesn't support it. The black box, to me, is the key to this whole freaking case. Keeping your foot on the gas pedal is not as easy as it sounds. If you're out of it or if you're sleep deprived. To reach that speed, you have to floor it, and the pedal is essentially fighting against you. That dog just don't hunt as far as the street. She's very familiar with it. She had traveled that road several times in the preceding days. And lastly, that black box showed intentional navigation steering will in turn like she was fighting someone for control of the car, and that is a fact.

29:09 So the trial stretches through the summer of twenty twenty three. Day after day, that courtroom filled with families, reporters, curious locals from the area who couldn't believe that one of their own was in the center of all of this, and Mackenzie she sat mostly silent. She would occasionally wipe away tears. Her parents would maintain her innocence publicly. They would launch a website, social media campaign and they would insist this crash was a terrible accident and that their daughter deserved a new trial. Dominique and Davion's families, they would speak powerfully about the futures that were stolen from their sons, Dominique's love of music and basketball, Davion's laughter and plans to build a life. The paint in that room was obvious, and on August fourteenth of twenty twenty three, Judge Nancy Mean Margaret Russo she delivers her verdict. The courtroom falls into heavy silence as she reads the words.

30:07 Everyone had been waiting for guilty on all counts. Now in a ruling. The judge was unflinching. She called Mackenzie Hell on Wheels, the nickname that had once been a joke by her friends now was forever etched into the official record. Quote this was not an accident, Judge Russo would say, this was not an intentional lack. You aim that vehicle like a weapon. The words would land like a hammer on a nail, and Mackenzie's shoulders would slump, Her parents would gasp, and the victims' families would weep openly in both relief and sorrow. Sentencing would come one week later, on August twenty first of twenty twenty three.

30:53 The courtroom was packed tighter than ever. Victim impact statements would fill the air with raw emotion, and Dominique's mother spoke of the empty chair at every family dinner. Davean's loved ones would describe a world without his jokes, without his light. Then Mackenzie stood to speak. Through tears. She offered a heartfelt apology quote, I'm so sorry for the pain I have caused. I never meant for this to happen. I loved Dominique. I would never hurt him on purpose. Her voice would crack, but the judge will remain unmoved. Mackenzie Shrilla received two concurrent fifteen years to life in prison.

31:37 She received credit for time already served, Her driver's license was revoked for life, and as the gavel fell for the final time, the weight of the decision settled on everyone in that courtroom. A seventeen year old girl who had walked in that courtroom as a defendant would walk out, headed for the Ohio Reformatory for Women in Marysville. But the story didn't end there. Appeals followed almost immediately. In twenty twenty four, and in twenty twenty five, Mackenzie's legal team challenged the conviction on multiple grounds, claims of ineffective counsel, questions about the black box evidence, arguments that the bench trial should have allowed a jury. The Ohio Court of Appeals upheld the verdict, The Ohio Supreme Court refused to even hear the case, and as of today, those appeals remain denied. Mackenzie, now in her early twenties, she continues to serve that sentence at the Ohio Reformatory for Women.

32:40 Her parents, Natalie and Steve, have never stopped fighting. They maintained publicly their daughter is innocent, the crash was a tragic accident, and that she deserves a new trial, and they visit when they can. They post updates. They carry the same mix of love and grief that every parent in their position would feel. And while I don't agree with them as it relates to her guilt, or even their parenting style for that matter, I do get why they keep fighting and why they can't see what is painfully obvious for most of us to see. To her parents, every horrific case in the criminal justice system, there's someone there that loves that person. Jeffrey Dahmer had a daddy who loved him period. He might have been the only one, but he had a daddy that loved him, and her parents love her, and so I understand that aspect of it, but I think it's obviously blinding their truth a little bit now, the russo and flaming in families. Meanwhile, they continue to obviously live with the permanent hole left in their lives. They advocate for stronger laws around teen dating, violence, impaired driving, the days of high speed vehicles in the hands of emotionally volatile young people. Strongsville itself still feels the pain, a quiet suburb that learned the hard way

34:11 how quickly normal teenage drama can turn deadly. And I think this case forces all of us to confront uncomfortable truths about teenage relationships. Look, the intensity of first love can feel all consuming. The fear of abandonment can cloud your judgment. Add drugs, lack of sleep, a vehicle, and the line between impulse and catastrophe can vanish in six seconds. Mackenzie Shirilla was not a career criminal, and in my opinion, she was a suburban girl who acted completely in the moment as a result of some sort of argument that turned passion into a horrific tragedy that left too dead.

35:02 My opinion, I think she flipped out in that car. I don't necessarily think she had any intention of living through that crash, and when she did, I think she had to come up with the defense for herself. I'm not even completely convinced that she remembers those last minutes. All of that being said, my heart's thoughts and prayers go out completely to the family of Dominique and Davion into her family. I just could not imagine dealing with that. And there you have it. That's my thoughts. Let me know what yours are. Thank you so much to my Patreon supporters. I could not do any of this without all of you, And if you'd like to support the show through Patreon, check us out patreon dot com. Slash Exposed podcast files for commercial free early releases, find this episode, It's quarterly gifts all kinds of stuff on that channel until next time. For exposed scandalous files of the Elite.

36:07 I'm your host, Jim Chapman. Much love,