Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - This Entitled Teen Thinks She Can Get Away With Murder - The Mackenszie Shirilla story

Episode Date: July 1, 2025

In the early morning of July 31, 2022, 17‑year‑old Mackenzie Shirilla drove her Toyota Camry at approximately 100 mph into a brick building in Strongsville, Ohio, killing her 20‑year‑old boyfriend, Dominic Russo, and a 19‑year‑old friend, Davion Flanagan. Prosecutors argued that Shirilla accelerated deliberately—evidenced by event‑data‑recorder data showing full pedal depression and no attempt to stop—and had threatened to crash previously amid a tumultuous relationship 

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And so, kaboom she slams the car directly into a brick wall. Now the girl's name is McKenzie and McKenzie's 17 living in Ohio and she's kind of a wannabe influencer, or at least her social media posts suggest that she wants to be one. And honestly, she'd probably make a great influencer. I mean people say she's entitled, she's a mean girl, she's kind of a bully, so she'd fit right in. But despite being on, all that, there's one guy who still really likes her. Her boyfriend, this guy, Dominic. And Dominic and McKinsey, they met back in school and they've been dating on and off for the past few years. Why have they been dating on and off? Well, apparently McKenzie's not a very good girlfriend. Like they

fight a lot and she can be really mean to Dominic when they fight. Berating him, calling him names, threatening to key his car. But one day in 2022, she gets really crazy between them. Because they're in her car cruising along the highway and McKinsey's driving and they get into an argument like they often do. And they start fighting and they're yelling at each other and she's crying and calling him all kinds of names and suddenly, pow, she starts hitting him from the driver's seat. And so Dominic, he gets scared.

I mean, he thinks she might accidentally crash the car. And so he calls his mom to come help him. I guess he wants her to pick him up if he can ever get McKinsey to pull over. And McKenzie, she's so pissed off that she threatens to crash the car on purpose and unalive them both. That is psycho behavior. Well, luckily, she doesn't end up crashing the car and I guess they work it out for the time being. However, her crazy behavior does put a strain on their relationship and at some point Dominic decides, Yeah, it's about time to break up with her for good.

I mean, he feels like this relationship has pretty much run its course. Two weeks later, McKenzie and Dominic are still together, and they both go to a friend's party. And they have a lot of fun at this party. I mean, they're hanging out, Dominic is drinking, McKenzie is apparently not drinking, but she's smoking a little zaza. And after that, they leave and go to another friend's party, and they have fun there too. And around 5.30 a.m., they're all done. They're about to leave this second party and go home, and a friend of Dominic's needs a ride home too.

This guy, his name's Davian. And so McKenzie, Dominic, and Davian, they're all three in the car headed home. And McKenzie, she's probably still a little high, but she's driving slow and she's careful, so, you know, they might be okay. In fact, you can see footage of them rounding the corner here, and it looks like they're going at a normal speed. Now, none of us know what really happens inside the car beyond this point. we can assume, based on past behavior, that McKenzie and Dominic start fighting. And that is when she just snaps. And skir-ch, she floors it, pedal to the metal, and the car takes off.

And she's so mad that she's going to unalive everyone in the car, including herself. And of course, Dominic's probably like, what the fuck? Slow down. And he tries to stop her. And he allegedly grabs the gear shift and he throws it into neutral. but McKenzie grabs the shift herself and rams it back into drive and she keeps on going faster and faster and she gets the car up to 90 miles an hour and as they reach the end of that street she doesn't ease her foot off the gas she doesn't stop she doesn't break she doesn't turn

she keeps on speeding accelerating toward a brick wall on the side of a building and she gets the car to nearly a hundred miles an hour and suddenly kaboon she crashes into the wall wall head on. Here is actually security footage of McKenzie's car just before it hits. And here's a picture of the wall after it was hit. And here's a picture of McKenzie's car, and here's the car from another angle. So yeah, you get it. This is really bad. Now, they're in an industrial part of town early in the morning, so there's no one around. It takes about 45 minutes for anyone to see the wreckage and call police. And so police show up, and they can see that the car is all busted up.

The car's splitting two. And they discover that, unfortunately, Dominic, he didn't make it. And neither did Davian. They were both killed instantly on impact. While McKenzie, she actually survives. And she's rushed to the hospital and she's there for a while and just have a bunch of surgeries, but she does end up making it. And she's eventually discharged from the hospital and she goes home.

Meanwhile, police, they have to investigate all this and figure out what the hell really happened. So of course, they question McKenzie. But she doesn't claim that she slammed into the brick wall on purpose. No, no, no. She says she doesn't remember anything regarding the crash that night. So she's not very helpful. And so they go and they interview Dominic's friends and people in their circle. And their friends tell police like, yeah, McKenzie was a little nutty in the relationship. In fact, she used to threaten Dominic.

and police see recordings of her threatening to key his car. I can keep your car, you do not let me in the house. Police are also told about the fight McKinsey and Dominic got in weeks before, where she got really pissed off and threatened to crash the car on purpose and unalive her and him both. And while police continue to investigate, McKinsey, she's out here living her best life. Like a few weeks after being discharged from the hospital,

she's caught attending a concert, and here she is, she's in a wheelchair because she's still recovering, from the accident. She also goes back to making TikToks, like this one. I'm not even cool. I'm just one of those girls that can do a lot of drugs and not die. And notice how she adds the caption, Google McKenzie, Shirilla, Strongville, Ohio. Like, she wants you to Google her and see that she was driving her car and got into a horrible accident that killed her boyfriend. Because that's the only thing that comes up when you Google her. Like she wants attention from all this. Why? Not only that, she goes out for Halloween.

to a party dressed up as, and I'm not making this up, dressed up as a corpse. And she actually takes multiple pictures throughout the night and posts them. And I guess she must have dressed up twice because later she dresses up like lean? While her friend dresses up as a joint. Lean is a mix of cough syrup and soda. It's a drug. And so they dress up like drugs and dead bodies for Halloween. They even make some TikToks about it.

Anyway, while police are still working hard on it, hard on this, they get access to McKenzie's crash cars event data recorder, aka it's black box. I guess the black boxes kind of look like this. Well, they get access to it and it shows that the night of the crash, after McKenzie floored it, she never tried to slow down. She never attempted to put her foot on the brake at all, and that she jerked the steering wheel at the last second, which veered them off the road and directly into the brick wall.

And so police, they're looking at all. all this and they start thinking, you know, this crash seems intentional. Like she was trying to unalive everyone in the car, including herself. The computer demonstrated that there was no attempt to slow down or stop. It was full speed into a building. Tragically, it caused two people their lives. And so, bam, they go and they arrest her. I'm McKenzie. Step out for me.

I'm Detective Hazzu. I'm the one who's been investigating the crash. You're under arrest for aggravated murder times, too. Here's her mugshot. And McKenzie goes to trial and she's found guilty and she's sentenced to life in prison.