Mackenzie Shirilla Loses Latest Appeal After Lawyers Missed Deadline by One Day
The Ohio Supreme Court has declined to hear Mackenzie Shirilla's latest appeal, leaving her murder conviction and life sentence intact. The ruling, issued June 23, 2026, comes as the case has drawn renewed national attention following the May premiere of the Netflix documentary The Crash.
The Appeal and Why It Failed
Shirilla, now 21, is serving two concurrent sentences of 15 years to life at the Ohio Reformatory for Women for the 2022 deaths of her boyfriend, Dominic Russo, 20, and their friend, Davion Flanagan, 19. In a July 31, 2022, early-morning crash in Strongsville, Ohio, Shirilla drove her Toyota Camry into the side of a brick building at approximately 100 mph without braking. Prosecutors argued the crash was intentional and pointed to surveillance footage, vehicle black box data, and a pattern of volatile behavior in Shirilla's relationship with Russo. In 2023, Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Nancy Margaret Russo found her guilty on all counts, including murder and aggravated vehicular homicide.
This was Shirilla's second failed appeal. The core problem was procedural: her attorneys missed the 365-day deadline to file a post-conviction relief petition by a single day. They had submitted it on Oct. 24, 2024 — one day after the deadline triggered by the Oct. 23, 2023, filing of her trial transcripts. Her legal team argued the error stemmed from a calendar miscalculation that failed to account for 2024 being a leap year. Neither the Eighth District Court of Appeals nor the Ohio Supreme Court accepted that explanation.
In her March ruling, appeals court Judge Anita Laster Mays wrote that Shirilla's petition was filed on the 366th day following the transcript and that the trial court had correctly determined it lacked jurisdiction to consider it. The Ohio Supreme Court, in a one-line ruling signed by Chief Justice Sharon Kennedy, declined jurisdiction under Rule 7.08(B)(4). Justice R. Patrick DeWine dissented.
Shirilla's new attorneys had filed a separate appeal on April 27, 2026, arguing the deadline should have started later because a supplemental transcript was filed weeks after the main trial record, and that Shirilla would have been acquitted under effective legal representation. The Supreme Court ruled those arguments did not meet the required exceptions.
Her first parole hearing is scheduled for September 2037.
The Netflix Documentary and Its Fallout
The Crash premiered on Netflix on May 15, 2026, and quickly became one of the platform's most-watched titles, drawing 27.6 million views in its second week alone. The documentary featured the first-ever on-camera interview with Shirilla, conducted in prison with her attorney present. In it, she maintained she has no memory of the crash and attributed it to a potential medical episode related to her 2017 diagnosis of postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome, or POTS — the same defense her legal team had presented at trial.
The documentary's release set off a wave of consequences beyond the courtroom. Shirilla's father, Steve Shirilla, who appeared in the film and defended his daughter's marijuana use while dismissing allegations she had bullied classmates, was placed on administrative leave from his position as an art and digital media teacher at Mary Queen of Peace School in Cleveland shortly after the premiere. The Catholic Diocese of Cleveland subsequently confirmed he would not be returning to the school.
Dominic Russo's sister, Christine Russo, has been vocal since the documentary aired, pushing back against what she described as misinformation and launching a podcast focused on grief, domestic violence awareness, and preserving the memories of Russo and Flanagan. In response to the Ohio Supreme Court's ruling, Christine shared her reaction online, expressing that the decision brought her some measure of relief. She has also called on lawmakers to modernize so-called "Son of Sam" laws to prevent convicted violent offenders from profiting from their crimes in the digital age.
Where Things Stand
With both state appeals now exhausted, Shirilla's path to overturning her conviction has narrowed significantly. While other legal avenues remain theoretically possible, the procedural failure that doomed her post-conviction petition has closed what was arguably the most substantive route to a new trial.
Shirilla is currently working as a food service worker inside the Ohio Reformatory for Women, according to reports from TMZ. She will not be eligible for parole until September 2037 at the earliest.
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