A former inmate says Mackenzie Shirilla confessed behind bars to deliberately crashing her car into a wall and killing her boyfriend and a friend in Cleveland. Anastasia, who said she was housed with Shirilla at the Ohio Reformatory for Women, described a prison conversation in which Shirilla allegedly talked about the 2022 crash as something she intended to do.
The claim lands as Shirilla's case remains a live search term because the crash already sent the 21-year-old through a murder conviction and an appeal fight. Dominic Russo, 20, and Davion Flanagan, 18, died in the wreck, and Shirilla's lawyers are still challenging the Ohio Supreme Court after it rejected her appeal as late. For readers trying to understand why the case keeps resurfacing, this is the latest allegation to add fresh attention to a story that has never really left public view.
Anastasia said Shirilla told other inmates she was suicidal and described driving her Toyota Camry into a brick wall at 100 mph. She said Shirilla allegedly used the line, “Dom had to die,” and spoke about the devil making her do it, even saying the devil was pressing on her foot. Anastasia also said Shirilla seemed amused while telling the story, saying she never saw her pass out.
That account cuts directly against what Shirilla has publicly said. In the Netflix documentary The Crash, she said she suffers from postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome and was unconscious when she crashed. Anastasia said Shirilla wanted the story to sound like the act of “a little devil girl,” while also claiming she kept a scrapbook with a photo of a brick wall marked “BOOM” and no pictures of Dom or Davion. The clash between those versions is now the sharpest unresolved part of the case.
Shirilla has already been labeled “Hell on wheels” by a judge at sentencing, and her prison record has also drawn scrutiny for alleged misconduct, including flashing visitors and keeping nude photos in her cell. Those details do not prove the new allegation, but they show why anything said about her conduct behind bars still draws notice. The question now is not whether the crash was devastating; it is whether there is any independent evidence that supports Anastasia's account of what Shirilla said in prison.
For now, Shirilla remains convicted, her appeal has been turned away on timeliness grounds, and her attorneys are still fighting. That leaves the prison allegation hanging in the air as another piece of a case that keeps asking the same hard question in different forms: accident, or deliberate act.
