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Mackenzie Shirilla’s chilling jail nickname revealed by ex-girlfriend after fatal crash case; ‘she’s not a good person'
Mackenzie Shirilla’s former prison girlfriend says the convicted Ohio woman joked about a chilling nickname behind bars.
Mackenzie Shirilla is the Ohio woman convicted of intentionally crashing her car at nearly 100 mph and killing her boyfriend and a friend in 2022. She reportedly had an interesting nickname behind bars and was not shy about sharing it with her then-girlfriend.
Shyann Topping, who began dating Shirilla shortly after she arrived at the Ohio Reformatory for Women in 2023, told People that one day, while trying to clear up a false rumor circulating about herself in prison, she sat down with Shirilla to show her evidence of what her real charges were.
Topping recalled that Shirilla was not bothered and responded casually, “They call me ‘Shirilla the Killa,’” following it with laughter.
Topping said she did not think much of it at the time. The two were in the middle of what she described as a whirlwind romance and Topping had only heard Shirilla's version of events surrounding the fatal crash. “She never really made light of what happened,” Topping said. “And she would talk about Dom and Davey a lot in a loving, regarding way.”
“When I was in [prison], I honestly believed maybe she's not guilty because of the limited information I had,” Topping told People.
After her release, Topping stayed in contact with Shirilla for months, still believing she might soon be freed. But once she started looking into the actual facts of the case, her opinion changed completely about Shirilla.
She then thought back to the moment in prison when Shirilla laughed about her nickname. “I just realized that maybe she is not a good person, that maybe she was just showing me what I wanted to see because she found me attractive,” Topping said.
Where is Shirilla now and what happened in 2022?
On July 31, 2022, a then 17-year-old Shirilla crashed her car into a brick wall at nearly 100 mph in Strongsville, Ohio that killed her boyfriend Dominic Russo who was 20, and their friend Davion Flanagan who was 19. Both were pronounced dead at the scene and Shirilla was hospitalized with multiple injuries.
Investigators found the accelerator was fully pressed with no braking in the final seconds of the accident and experts also ruled out any car malfunction, according to court documents cited by People. A family friend also testified that he had heard Shirilla say "I'm going to wreck this car right now" weeks before the crash.
Prosecutors argued the act was premeditated, claiming she intended to kill Russo due to their troubled relationship. Court documents also revealed that Shirilla texted Russo's brother asking him to place photos of the two of them in Dominic's casket “so he can be with me forever.”
In August 2023, Judge Nancy Margaret Russo found her guilty on all 12 charges. Subsrquently, Shirilla was sentenced to two concurrent 15-year-to-life terms and will not be eligible for parole until 2037. All appeals have been denied, per WKYC. She is currently incarcerated at the Ohio Reformatory for Women in Marysville, Ohio.
The true-crime documentary The Crash is now streaming on Netflix since May 15, 2026.
