‘Hell on wheels’ killer Mackenzie Shirilla lands prison job while serving life sentence for fatal 2022 crash
Convicted killer Mackenzie Shirilla has landed a prison job as she serves a life sentence for the 2022 crash that killed her boyfriend and their friend, Ohio prison officials confirmed to Fox News Digital.
Shirilla’s institutional work assignment at the Ohio Reformatory for Women is food service worker, according to Tara Nickle, a correction warden assistant and public information officer for the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction.
But officials declined to provide more detail about the assignment, citing Ohio public-records exemptions.
The small glimpse into Shirilla’s daily prison life comes amid renewed attention on the case after Netflix’s "The Crash" revisited the fatal wreck, which prosecutors said was no accident for the driver dubbed "hell on wheels."
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Shirilla, now 21, is serving two concurrent sentences of 15 years to life in prison for killing her boyfriend, Dominic Russo, 20, and their friend, Davion Flanagan, 19, after prosecutors said she deliberately slammed her Toyota Camry into a brick building in Strongsville, Ohio, on July 31, 2022.
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Police records reviewed by Fox News Digital show Strongsville officers responded around 6:15 a.m. on July 31, 2022, after the Camry struck the PLIDCO building at 11792 Alameda Drive in Strongsville.
Shirilla, then 17, was removed from the driver’s seat and flown to MetroHealth Medical Center. Russo and Flanagan were pronounced dead after being mechanically extricated from the wreckage, records show.
A grand jury presentation reviewed by Fox News Digital said Life360 data showed the vehicle traveling 90 mph in a 35 mph zone, while Event Data Recorder information showed the accelerator fully engaged and no service brake applied in the seconds before the devastating crash.
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A later police request to the Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner’s Office said the deaths were initially classified as accidental, but investigators believed the evidence showed the crash was "not an accident, but an intentional act."
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Police asked the medical examiner to conduct a secondary review and change the manner of death to homicide.
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Prosecutors argued at trial that Shirilla drove into the building to end her toxic relationship with Russo, and that Flanagan was an unintended victim who happened to be in the car. Shirilla's case is back in the limelight after Netflix's new series, "The Crash."
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Since the docuseries, Shirilla’s lawyers have asked the Ohio Supreme Court for an appeal.
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In a filing with the Ohio Supreme Court reviewed by Fox News Digital, Shirilla’s attorneys argue her trial lawyers failed to adequately investigate evidence that she suffered from Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome, or POTS. The syndrome, they say, could have caused her to lose consciousness before the crash.
The defense says the condition was only "cursorily referenced" at trial, despite Shirilla and her family allegedly putting her attorneys on notice about it. Her lawyers now argue trial counsel should have dug deeper and sought expert testimony to explain whether POTS could account for Shirilla’s failure to brake before impact.
Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Michael O’Malley "believes without question that Mackenzie Shirilla is guilty of murder," his office said in a May 27 statement.