Judge to mull whether Strongsville teen who killed boyfriend, friend in 100mph crash deserves life in prison
CLEVELAND, Ohio — Whether a Strongsville woman is guilty of killing her boyfriend and a friend in a car crash when she was 17 rests in the hands of a judge.
Mackenzie Shirilla[1], now 19, was driving her Toyota Camry 100 mph in a business park last July when she jumped the curb, careened off of a sign and smashed into a brick warehouse. The crash killed her boyfriend, Dominic Russo, and Davion Flanagan, who were passengers in the car.
Assistant Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Tim Troup said in closing arguments Thursday that there was only one explanation for Shirilla’s actions that morning: that she wanted to murder Russo to culminate a monthslong relationship that had soured in the weeks before the crash.
“Davion was just cargo,” Troup said. “Whatever she had in for Dominic, [Flanagan] was just along with his friend and got sucked into a toxic relationship and just got in the wrong seat that night.”
Shirilla’s attorney, Jim McDonnell, said prosecutors did not put forth enough evidence to prove the crash was anything more than a tragic result of “kids being kids.” He asked Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court Judge Nancy Margaret Russo to find Shirilla guilty of aggravated vehicular homicide for driving recklessly but to acquit her of murder charges.
“We are really never going to know what happened in that car,” McDonnell said, “much less prove with evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that ... present in the mind of Mackenzie was a specific intent to cause the death of her boyfriend and their friend.”
The comments came at the end of Shirilla’s trial in which she faces four counts of murder, felonious assault and aggravated vehicular homicide tied to the July 31, 2022, crash. She is also charged with drug possession and possession of criminal tools after emergency workers at the scene found a small bag of psychedelic mushrooms and a scale in her jacket pocket.
She did not testify. Shirilla, who was prosecuted as an adult, has been jailed since her November arrest on a $500,000 bond.
The judge, who heard the case without a jury, said she will announce her verdict Monday.
The crash happened about 5:30 a.m. at a manufacturing plant in Strongsville’s Progress Drive Business Park off Pearl Road.
Prosecutors said one of their strongest pieces of evidence was a brief video from a city-owned security camera showing Shirilla using her turn signal and slowly turning her car from Pearl Road onto Alameda Drive slowly and using her blinker.
“It’s as if she was winding up when she drove from Pearl onto Progress,” Troup said.
Troup also said that crash investigators examined the car’s computer system, and it showed the pedal was pushed to the floor in the four seconds before the crash, and the brake was never pushed.
He said during close arguments that there was “no reason” for Shirilla to be driving in the business park at 5:30 a.m. to begin with.
Prosecutors also sought to use statements that Shirilla made while she was recovering in the hospital, expressing grief over Russo’s death, against her.
Doctors at MetroHealth noted that she expressed feelings of “grief, guilt and shame” and, when a detective showed up and said he was investigating her criminally, she replied by asking if he could take her license away for 10 years, Allison Cupach, another assistant county prosecutor on the case, said.
“That shows intent and consciousness of guilt,” Cupach said.
McDonnell argued that after four days of testimony, there were still multiple explanations for what occurred in the car, a sign that prosecutors failed to prove their case that Shirilla deliberately killed Russo and Flanagan.
He said it would not be out of the ordinary for drivers who are at fault in a fatal accident to feel terrible.
“She’s not saying she committed aggravated murder,” McDonnell said.
Friends who were at the house that Shirilla, Russo and Flanagan went to the night before the crash said the couple did not argue and seemed happy. The owner of a health foods store and Shirilla’s great aunt each testified on her behalf Thursday that the couple seemed happy and were making plans for the future in the months before the crash.
McDonnell also said it was possible that Shirilla may have passed out. Her mother, Natalie Shirilla, testified Thursday that her daughter had been diagnosed in 2017 with a disorder that results in her passing out from time to time if her sodium levels are too low. Mackenzie Shirilla told medical personnel and Russo’s mother, Christine Agnello Russo, after the crash that she blacked out and didn’t remember what happened.
McDonnell also pointed out that a report by a Strongsville police detective, Zaki Hazou, included a file of 136 photos from social media accounts that Hazou titled “reckless driving.”
The car’s computer system data also showed that, about five seconds before the crash, the steering wheel jerked right and then jerked left. McDonnell said it was possible that Shirilla had been driving recklessly and then tried to avoid the crash at the last minute when she came upon the Progress Drive intersection.
McDonnell also dismissed evidence of arguments between Shirilla and Russo in the weeks before the crash.
In one instance, a 42-year-old man with a criminal record who lived with Russo and his parents claimed he overheard Shirilla threaten to crash the car while he was on the phone with Russo. McDonnell said the man’s story didn’t add up.
He also questioned the relevancy of a video that Russo recorded of the two arguing several weeks before the crash. The video showed Shirilla threatening to key Russo’s car.
“I can’t even fathom how somebody threatening to key a car then equates to evidence that they’re going to kill them,” McDonnell said.
References
- ^ Mackenzie Shirilla (www.cleveland.com)