Convicted ‘hell on wheels’ driver Mackenzie Shirilla has filed a petition seeking a new trial in another desperate attempt at freedom.
The 22-year-old was convicted in 2023 of murdering her boyfriend, Dominic Russo, 20, and their friend, Davion Flanagan, 19, by intentionally crashing a car into a building at nearly 100mph two days before her 18th birthday.
She has since been serving two concurrent sentences of 15 years to life at the Ohio Reformatory for Women, with her first chance at parole scheduled for September 2037, when she will be 33 years old.
But Shirilla’s newly-hired defense attorneys argue in a habeas corpus petition filed late Tuesday in Ohio’s Northern District Court that the lawyers who represented the then-teenager at trial were ineffective and withheld important evidence.
They note that in 2023 the lawyer did not call expert witnesses who could testify that Shirilla’s Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome, or POTS, diagnosis could cause her to pass out, nor did the lawyer present medical records about the teen’s condition.
Her new lawyers also claim that her case was improperly transferred from juvenile court to an adult court, which the trial lawyers failed to challenge.
As a result, Shirilla’s constitutional rights to due process of the law, to confront witnesses at her criminal case and her right to effective counsel were violated, the lawyers from Cleveland criminal defense firm Marein & Bradley LLC argue.
Convicted double murderer Mackenzie Shirilla has filed a federal petition seeking a new trial
Shirilla was convicted in 2023 of murdering her boyfriend, Dominic Russo, 20, and their friend, Davion Flanagan, 19
Much of the federal court filing echoes arguments that an appeals court has already rejected, including that there was not enough evidence to prove Shirilla committed murder nor was there evidence for her to face trial as an adult.
It argues that ‘there wasn’t enough evidence to support her conviction’ and that prosecutors failed to prove that Shirilla was acting ‘purposely or knowingly’ before she crashed her vehicle.
Such probable cause is required to bind a criminal case involving a juvenile over to the adult court system, her attorneys note in the filing obtained by the Daily Mail.
Evidence that she was speeding excessively ‘particularly at a time and place where it was unlikely that there would be other vehicles or pedestrians’ does not prove she was acting recklessly, as required for her aggravated vehicular homicide charge, the filing states.
Her lawyers also claimed that a coroner’s report was changed to show the manner of Russo and Flanagan’s deaths were homicides, rather than accidents, at the request of police, and that the medical examiners who testified at her trial were not the ones who performed the autopsies.
But Shirilla’s lawyers at the time did not object to the deputy county medical examiner testifying in the place of the medical examiner who performed the autopsies, nor did they object to the changes to the coroner’s report, the filing claims.
The trial lawyers then failed to present evidence that could have helped Shirilla in her case, including text messages showing Russo was ‘actually the instigator’ when he grabbed the wheel in a separate driving incident weeks before the deadly crash, her new defense team argues.
The original lawyers then failed to call expert witnesses who could testify about Shirilla’s POTS diagnosis and did not present her medical records.
Shirilla was convicted on multiple counts, including aggravated vehicular homicide and felonious assault, and sentenced to at least 15 years behind bars before she could face parole
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They then also held back evidence suggesting Shirilla was near the PLIDCO building in Strongsville, Ohio, on July 31, 2022, to pick up produce she had previously ordered.
‘An issue in the case was why Shirilla would have been in the crash location, particularly at such an early morning hour,’ the filing reads.
‘The prosecution theorized that the location was intended to be private in order for Shirilla to crash the vehicle without immediate attention. But the defense had evidence that a local grocer had left a package of produce for Shirilla at a 24-hour pickup spot at a store located in the vicinity of the crash scene.
‘This would have provided a benign explanation for why Shirilla was driving in this particular area that morning; that evidence was not presented by the defendant even though the grocer testified about other matters,’ her attorneys argue.
They go on to claim that the trial lawyers were also ineffective because they missed the filing deadline for her post-conviction relief by just one day.
Shirilla now claims that the attorneys that represented her at trial were ineffective
At the same time, though, they argue that the appeals court misinterpreted the Ohio state law requiring post-conviction relief petitions to be filed no more than one year after a trial concludes.
In a separate petition to the Ohio Supreme Court asking it to reconsider its decision denying her post-conviction relief petition due to its late filing, her lawyers have argued the deadlines were confusing.
They argued that she should have been allowed more time to submit the motion because juvenile court transcripts were not filed until months after the trial transcripts.
Her attorneys also argued that the delay was the result of a miscalculation tied to a leap year.
That petition challenges her conviction is still pending, as is a separate filing in Ohio’s 8th District Court of Appeals to reopen her appeal due to ineffective counsel.
When authorities arrived on the scene of the crash on July 31, 2022, they found Shirilla’s Toyota Camry smashed in half
Prosecutors have argued that Shirilla deliberately drove her Toyota Camry into the side of the PLIDCO building on July 31, 2022 as her relationship with Russo deteriorated.
While Russo and Flanagan died almost instantly, Shirilla survived the crash and was hospitalized with multiple severe injuries.
Evidence presented at trial showed that the vehicle was traveling approximately 100mph in a 35mph zone moments before impact, with data indicating the accelerator was fully engaged and no brakes were applied.
Surveillance video showed the car speeding down a quiet road before smashing through a business sign and slamming into the building, with first responders finding the vehicle split in half in what one officer called ‘the worst crash I’ve ever seen.’
Shirilla has maintained that the crash was not intentional, calling herself a ‘third victim’ who does not need to be ‘rehabilitated’ in shocking phone calls with her mother.
Judge Nancy Margaret Russo ultimately found her guilty in 2023, famously declaring: ‘This was not reckless driving – this was murder.’
‘She had a mission, and she executed it with precision,’ the judge said.
The case has remained in the headlines in recent weeks following the release of the Netflix documentary, The Crash, which revisited the fatal collision and featured interviews with Shirilla from prison.
