The shocking car crash that killed Shirilla’s boyfriend, Dominic Russo, and their friend, Davion Flanagan, is the subject of the new Netflix documentary, “The Crash.”
Mackenzie Shirilla’s father, Steve Shirilla, continues to defend his daughter after she was convicted of intentionally killing her boyfriend, Dominic Russo, and their friend, Davion Flanagan.
Steve and his wife, Natalie Shirilla, spoke up for their daughter in the recent Netflix documentary The Crash, which renewed national attention in the 2022 car crash that killed Russo and Flanagan. It was Mackenzie behind the wheel of the car that raced at a speed of up to 100 miles per hour into a brick wall in Strongsville, Ohio, that summer. While the passengers were pronounced dead on the scene, Mackenzie survived and was put on trial for their deaths within a year.
She was ultimately convicted on all 12 counts stemming from their deaths, including murder, aggravated vehicular homicide, and drug possession. She is now serving two concurrent life sentences, with a possibility of parole after 15 years. But Steve still maintains his daughter’s innocence, speaking on Wednesday’s episode of the True Crime This Weekpodcast to make the case once more.
“I’ve asked her, ‘Did you do this on purpose?’ And she goes, ‘No,’” Steve told host James Renner. “I would think if my daughter was that mad, that mad at that boy to want to kill him that way, Davion would have never been in the car. That makes no sense.”
“Something happened in that car. No one’s ever going to know,” he continued. “She’s innocent of the charges they put upon her.”
Steve advanced a similar defense of his daughter in The Crash, in which he and Natalie participated. Mackenzie also gave her first on-camera interview since the incident to the film’s producers.
“I don’t have a problem with her smoking dope,” he said in The Crash of her marijuana use. “If you’re going to smoke a drug, that’s the one I believe you should take.” Mackenzie’s marijuana use became a flash point at the 2023 trial, when it was found she had THC in her system at the time of the crash.
After the release of The Crash, Steve was put on leave from his job as a teacher at the Mary Queen of Peace School in Cleveland.
“I sat with my daughter for three months in that room right there. Three months watching her watch every video, every song, every picture about that boy. There was a shrine to him in that room,” Steve said on True Crime This Week, adding that his daughter “cried herself to sleep every night.”
“She has remorse. She was upset. If you would have heard her when she found out that Dom died, if you would have heard the sound that came out of her, it would have crushed you,” he continued. “She was 17. She’s a dumb kid. She wasn’t breaking up. She didn’t do it on purpose.”













began in August 2018 when Shanann Watts and her daughters were reported missing from their home in Frederick, Colorado. Initially, Chris Watts appeared in television interviews and public appeals asking for their safe return. However, investigators soon uncovered inconsistencies in his statements, and the investigation quickly shifted toward him as the primary suspect.
Following sentencing, Watts was initially housed within the Colorado prison system before being transferred to Dodge Correctional Institution in Wisconsin due to security concerns and the notoriety of his crimes. He remains incarcerated there under the supervision of the Wisconsin Department of Corrections.
Today, Watts faces a future with no possibility of parole and no opportunity to return to life outside prison walls. While legal proceedings concluded years ago, the case continues to be remembered as one of the most shocking examples of family violence in recent American history. His sentence guarantees that he will remain incarcerated for the rest of his life, ensuring permanent accountability for crimes that permanently altered countless lives














