Newly surfaced jail calls between Mackenzie Shirilla and her mother show the convicted teen making fame-focused requests ahead of receiving life sentences for the deaths of two young men.
Shirilla was 17 when prosecutors said she deliberately drove her car at around 100mph into a brick wall in 2022, killing her boyfriend Dominic Russo, 20, and their friend Davion Flanagan, 19, who were sitting in the passenger seats.
Although Shirilla maintained she experienced a medical emergency that caused the crash, the judge rejected that account, describing the act as ‘controlled, methodical, deliberate, intentional, and purposeful’ and handing down two concurrent life sentences.
Speaking in court in 2023, the judge said: “This was not reckless driving – this was murder.
“She had a mission, and she executed it with precision. The decision was death.”
The case drew widespread attention, and while she awaited trial at the Cuyahoga County Jail in Cleveland, Shirilla appeared to track the public interest closely.
On recorded calls to her mother from custody, she often seemed preoccupied with how she was being portrayed and what she could access in jail, rather than the severity of the allegations.
“I really want my iPad,” she said in one phone call, which has been obtained by the US Sun.
The teenager begged: “Can you call and ask? Please, please.”
After her mother told her the case had been mentioned on the Today Show, Shirilla immediately replied: “What? What did they say about me?”
In another conversation, Shirilla floated the idea of turning the notoriety surrounding her arrest into something bigger, even bringing up a path into entertainment.
“Remember that one guy who got arrested for murder, and he became like a model because he was just like… everyone was like loving his mugshot?” she asked her mother.
She added: “He’s an actor and s**t now. I watched a movie with him in it.”
During the same period, Shirilla also asked her mother to update her Instagram bio while she was behind bars, requesting the phrases ‘hashtag Free Kenzie’ and ‘hashtag innocent’.
In one call, the two laughed as Shirilla speculated that Kim Kardashian could potentially take an interest in her case.
Her mom added: “That’s what I’m saying, I’m hoping. We’re getting there. I was gonna do this anyway, so this is great…craziness, baby girl.”
Interest in the case has continued, with a Netflix documentary titled The Crash revisiting the events and featuring Shirilla speaking publicly for the first time since her conviction.