Mackenzie Shirilla is the Ohio woman who was convicted in 2022 of intentionally crashing her car at nearly 100 mph and killing her boyfriend and a friend. She reportedly had an interesting nickname behind bars and wasn’t shy about sharing it with her then-girlfriend.
Shyanne Topping, who began dating Shirilla soon after arriving at the Ohio Reformatory for Women in 2023, told People One day, while trying to dispel a false rumor spreading about her in prison, she sits down with Shirilla to show her proof of her real allegations.
Topping recalled that Shirilla had no problem and responded with a laugh, casually replying, “They call me ‘Shirilla the Killa’.”
Topping said he didn’t think much about it at the time. The two were in the midst of what she described as a whirlwind romance and Topping had only heard Shirilla’s version of the events surrounding the fatal crash. “He never shed any light on what happened,” Topping said. “And she spoke very fondly of Dom and Davy.”
“When I was in [prison]I honestly believed he was probably not guilty because of the limited information I had,” Topping tells People.
Also read: Mackenzie Schirilla sent heartbreaking message to boyfriend Dominic Russo before fatal crash: ‘I’m going to kill someone’
After her release, Topping remained in contact with Shirilla for months, still believing that she might soon be free. But once he started looking into the real facts of the case, his opinion of Shirilla completely changed.
She then recalled the moment in prison when Shirilla laughed about her nickname. Topping said, “I just realized that maybe she wasn’t a nice person, maybe she was just showing me what I wanted to see because she found me attractive.”
Where is Shirilla now and what will happen in 2022?
On July 31, 2022, the then-17-year-old Shirilla crashed her car into a brick wall at nearly 100 mph in Strongsville, Ohio, killing her 20-year-old boyfriend Dominic Russo and their 19-year-old friend Davion Flanagan. Both were pronounced dead at the scene and Shirilla was hospitalized with multiple injuries.
According to court documents cited by People, investigators found that the accelerator was fully depressed without applying the brakes in the final seconds of the crash, and experts also ruled out any defects in the car. A family friend also testified that he had heard Shirilla say, “I’m going to destroy this car right now” a few weeks before the accident.
Also read: Mackenzie Shirilla was prison’s ‘mean girl’: Former inmate makes shocking claim, criticizes Netflix’s The Crash
Prosecutors argued that the act was premeditated, claiming that she intended to kill Russo because of their troubled relationship. Court documents also revealed that Shirilla texted Russo’s brother asking for photos of the two of them to be placed in Dominic’s casket “so he can be with me forever.”
In August 2023, Judge Nancy Margaret Russo found him guilty on all 12 charges. Subsequently, Shirilla was sentenced to two concurrent 15-years-to-life sentences and will not be eligible for parole until 2037. According to WKYC, all appeals have been denied. She is currently incarcerated at the Ohio Reformatory for Women in Marysville, Ohio.
True-crime documentary The Crash is now streaming on Netflix starting May 15, 2026.