Mackenzie Shirilla's appeal has been denied by Ohio's Supreme Court, and the 21-year-old Netflix subject will serve her sentences for the 2022 deaths of her boyfriend Dominic Russo and friend Davion Flanagan.
Chief Justice Sharon L. Kennedy refused to review the case on June 23, writing that she "declines to accept jurisdiction of the appeal." Shirilla's legal team had argued her case "presents substantial constitutional questions and matters of great public and great general interest." Prosecutors countered that the appeal concerned only an untimely filing technicality.
On July 31, 2022, Shirilla's Toyota Camry struck a brick wall at over 100 mph in Strongsville, Ohio. Prosecutors claimed she "chose a course of death and destruction" by deliberately crashing the car. Shirilla maintains she has no memory of what happened before impact.
Shirilla is serving two concurrent 15-years-to-life sentences. In the Netflix documentary The Crash, she said, "I was a driver of a tragedy, but I'm not a murderer." She added: "I try to wake up and be the best person I can be every day, stay out of trouble. There's not a moment that doesn't pass where I don't think about them."
The Netflix documentary gave Shirilla a platform to present her account, and online opinion remains divided on the verdict. With her appeal denied, she has no clear legal path to overturn her conviction.
