11798 Alameda Drive, Strongsville, OH 44149
In the early morning hours of July 31, 2022, 17-year-old Mackenzie Shirilla was driving her boyfriend, 20-year-old Dominic Russo, and his friend, 19-year-old Davion Flanagan, through the quiet business park streets of Strongsville, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland. The three had spent the night together, attending a graduation party before ending up at a friend's house until around 5:30am. At 5:34am, surveillance footage captured Shirilla's 2018 Toyota Camry slowly turning right from Pearl Road onto Progress Drive. Within one minute, a second camera captured what would happen next.
At just after 5:35am, Shirilla's Camry flew down the dead-end stretch of Progress Drive at over 100 miles per hour and slammed directly into the brick wall of the Plidco Building at the intersection of Progress Drive and Alameda Drive. The corner of the building hit the passenger side of the car dead-on.
Mackenzie's car just before the crash - Public Domain
Because the area was so quiet with no one around to witness the crash, it took First Responders about 45 minutes to get to the site. When they finally arrived, they found all three occupants unconscious, not breathing, and trapped inside the vehicle. Shirilla's foot was still pressed against the accelerator when they recovered her from the vehicle. Officers on scene described the car as having been split in two and called it the worst crash they had ever seen. Russo and Flanagan were both pronounced dead at the scene. Shirilla was airlifted to MetroHealth Medical Center in Cleveland with multiple bone fractures.
As investigators combed through the wreckage, they discovered psilocybin mushrooms and a digital scale in Shirilla's possession. More critically, data pulled from the car's black box Event Data Recorder revealed that Shirilla had her right foot pressed fully to the floor on the accelerator at the time of impact and that the brake pedal had never been applied. The vehicle had no mechanical defects that could have contributed to the crash.
Investigators quickly began looking into the nature of Shirilla's relationship with Russo. What they found painted a picture of a volatile and controlling dynamic. The couple had dated for four years, broken up and reconciled multiple times, and had been living together since 2021. In the weeks leading up to the crash, tensions had been escalating dramatically. A family friend sent to pick Russo up from Shirilla's home just weeks before the crash reported hearing Shirilla scream, "I'm going to wreck this car right now," while trying to hit Russo. Russo's family described an increasingly frightened young man. Shirilla's former classmates later described her as erratic and controlling, and several noted she had cut off mutual friendships due to her behavior. Three months after the crash, in November 2022, Shirilla was arrested and charged with two counts of aggravated murder.
Shirilla opted for a bench trial, which began on August 7, 2023, before Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Nancy Margaret Russo (no relation to the victim, Dominic Russo). The prosecution argued that Shirilla had intentionally accelerated down the dead-end road with the intent to end her toxic relationship with Dominic by killing everyone in the car. The defense maintained that no one could know what truly happened inside that vehicle and argued for a lesser charge of reckless homicide.
On August 14, 2023, Judge Russo found Shirilla guilty on all 12 counts, including four counts of murder, four counts of felonious assault, and two counts of aggravated vehicular homicide. In delivering her verdict, Judge Russo stated that Shirilla "morphs from a responsible driver to literal hell on wheels as she makes her way down the street," and that she "had a mission and she executed it with precision."
At her sentencing on August 21, 2023, Shirilla read a statement to the court saying she was sorry and that she loved both Dominic and Davion. Prosecutors countered by noting that in the immediate aftermath of the crash, Shirilla had asked investigators if they could "just suspend her license for 10 years," and that while she was still hospitalized, she and her mother had been in contact with a Los Angeles modeling agency. Months later, before any formal charges had been filed, Shirilla was photographed on social media attending a Halloween event and a concert in Cleveland. Judge Russo sentenced Shirilla to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 15 years.
Shirilla's legal team has since mounted multiple appeals. The Eighth District Court of Appeals upheld her conviction in September 2024. In February 2025, her attorneys filed an appeal with the Ohio Supreme Court, which declined to hear the case in April 2025. A subsequent petition for post-conviction relief was denied after it was found to have been filed one day past the statutory deadline — on the 366th day rather than the 365th. As of May 2025, Shirilla remains incarcerated at the Ohio Reformatory for Women in Marysville, Ohio, and her conviction stands.
Shirilla's parents have publicly maintained their daughter's innocence, with their legal team arguing that a neurologist's review of her post-crash medical data is consistent with a loss of consciousness prior to impact. Those claims have not been evaluated by any court on their substantive merits due to the filing deadline issue.
The case is the subject of an upcoming Netflix documentary, The Crash, set to release on May 15, 2025, which examines the events of that night and the investigation that followed.
The crash occurred at the Plidco Building near the intersection of Progress Drive and Alameda Drive in Strongsville, Ohio. The building still stands and the site is accessible from a public road. Hauntingly, the Google Street View images show a blue tarp still covering the part of the building that was crashed into.
As with any location connected to a recent tragedy, please be mindful and respectful. This is an active business area — do not trespass on private property and remain on public roads and walkways at all times.
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