- 8 hours ago
Some documentaries leave out the details that really change the story. In this video, we’re digging into the most important information omitted from the case of Mackenzie Shirilla, from coded phone calls and social media ambitions to disturbing messages, a possible rehearsal, and more. These overlooked moments paint a darker picture of what really happened.
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00:00The school sent an email to parents saying it is investigating allegations on social media
00:04that a teacher demonstrated poor judgment and that the teacher was placed on administrative
00:09leave while the investigation continues. Welcome to Ms. Mojo and today we're exploring the most
00:15vital details in Mackenzie Schirrilla's case involving taking the lives of Dominic Russo
00:20and Davion Flanagan that the Netflix 2026 documentary The Crash missed. Mackenzie
00:26definitely wanted to be the it girl and like everyone looking at her. Steve Schirrilla's
00:33job. Steve Schirrilla says he's been placed on administrative leave from his job at Mary
00:38Queen of Peace School in Cleveland following the documentary's release. The school's website
00:42lists him as an art and digital media teacher. Many people have pondered what they do if their
00:47child were accused of a horrific crime and there was strong evidence. If it helps don't do what
00:53Steve did during the case involving his daughter. With blind devotion and supporting her use of
00:58illegal substances, Steve didn't come off well for those who saw the crash.
01:03I knew she smoked dope. I don't have a problem with her smoking dope. I don't have a problem
01:07with me smoking. I don't have a problem with you smoking it. If you're going to take a drug,
01:10that's the one I believe you should take. You know, it's better than alcohol. It's better than
01:15all the other crap. Seemingly, that included those connected to his workplace. Several parents,
01:20one of whom claimed he was well-liked, contacted the Mary Queen of Peace School in Cleveland,
01:25Ohio, where Steve worked as the art and digital media teacher. His bosses soon confirmed that he'd
01:31been placed on administrative leave due to his, quote, poor judgment. Steve, in response,
01:36criticized Netflix for how it edited the documentary to make his comments appear worse.
01:41Unfortunately, we had no editing or we didn't have any of the control of the editing. They did what they
01:46saw fit. This is their product. They were very upfront with us when they spoke to us. And am I
01:52completely happy with how it came out? There's some things I like, and there's some things I don't
01:56like. Influencer ambitions. The crash did touch on Sharilla's passion for social media. When I met
02:02her, I had 200k on TikTok and on YouTube, and she had like a few thousand followers.
02:08She always wanted to be a model like me. So me and Kenzie would hang out all the time and
02:12just go do
02:12photo shoots. However, it was seemingly a lot more intense than the impression they gave.
02:18The investigation discovery docuseries Mean Girl Murders had an episode about the case that
02:23focused far more on this, depicting the convicted double killer as having ambitions to become an
02:28influencer. Kenzie did want to be an influencer. She was a lot more driven than other kids at that
02:35school. She very much wanted to start her career. Mostly creating content in the lifestyle and fashion
02:41niches, some of Sharilla's fellow students felt that everything she was doing was to build an
02:46online platform. Unfortunately for her, her social media presence would also contribute to the tarnishing
02:52of her prospective life. As the prosecution pointed out some of her more callous public posts as a sign
02:58of lack of remorse. Just absolutely blown away by the sheer audacity, the sheer lack of empathy
03:10that those pictures entailed. Following the conclusion of the criminal case, Sharilla's TikTok
03:18and Instagram accounts have seemingly been deactivated. Influencer Rosie Graham. The crash provided plenty of
03:24screen time for Sharilla's friends, Bubba and Rosie Graham, which some viewers found uncomfortable due
03:30to the lack of balance with advocates for the victims. She would come to school with like a purse
03:34instead of a bag, which I thought was really cute. I got along with her well because I'm like,
03:40you're cute. She's like, you're cute. And I'm like, okay, we get along so well. While the commentary
03:44touched on Graham's social media career, the scope of her presence was severely downplayed.
03:49A fitness influencer who regularly posts her workouts online, her YouTube channel has over
03:54a million subscribers. Hey guys, welcome back. If you're new here, welcome. My name is Rosie and
04:00today is day number 17 of my 15-minute daily 30-day workout challenge. Since the crash aired,
04:06backlash towards Graham for supporting Sharilla caused her to turn off comments on her channel.
04:11The influencer did respond to the outrage, claiming that Netflix's editing caused her to appear bad
04:16and that she wasn't picking sides. Graham also stated that it was her decision not to plug her
04:22YouTube channel during the documentary, as she asked the producers not to include that information.
04:27I was like shocked. I genuinely do not think that this could have been on purpose,
04:33intentional or planned. Like, it doesn't make sense to me. We were all friends.
04:39Fatal tampering theory. Following the devastating car collision, investigators were desperate to find an
04:45explanation for the carnage. In the crash, the prosecutor, Tim Troop, explained how he got an
04:50auto expert to examine the wreckage and come up with an explanation.
04:54Was something tampered with or did the car malfunction in some way? The police did observe
05:01a fuzzy Prada slipper that appeared to be stuck to the floorboard next to the accelerator pedal.
05:10However, one part that the documentary didn't explore was the theory that it wasn't an accident,
05:16nor did Sharilla purposely crash her vehicle into a wall. Instead, there was an idea that someone else
05:21had tampered with her car, perhaps cutting the brakes to stop them from working.
05:25From the video, it appears the brakes were not applied. Could they have been tampered with?
05:33It was the speed and the absence of braking that really made the investigators starting thinking
05:39this may not have been an accident. While the theory was tossed out, likely due to the car's
05:44quote, black box finding that the accelerator was still pressed down regardless, it's interesting that
05:49this idea wasn't mentioned at all.
05:52100% gas pedal, no attempt at using the brake.
05:58The evidence all combines together to show
06:02this was not an accident.
06:05School allegations.
06:06Me and Kenzie met in middle school.
06:10Growing up, we kind of jumped from house to house because we lived so close.
06:15She was like a sister to me.
06:17Beyond the core group and Sharilla's childhood friend, there wasn't too much about her school
06:22life in the crash. Well, if there was, it probably wouldn't have made her look too great to the
06:27audience. According to her former classmates, Sharilla idolized the fictional character Regina
06:32George from 2004's Mean Girls film.
06:35Home schooled. That's really interesting.
06:38Thanks.
06:39You're like really pretty.
06:42So you agree?
06:43What?
06:44You think you're really pretty?
06:45A poor choice in a role model, due to the character's abrasive and cruel persona,
06:50the convict would imitate Regina. This apparently included tormenting other students,
06:54despite her friends in the crash claiming she helped them avoid experiencing the same
06:58ill treatment from students.
07:00I remember at school, I was bullied a little bit.
07:05And Kenzie was like, don't talk to her like that. That's not okay.
07:09She is a very loyal person.
07:12Following the documentary's airing, Sharilla's former cellmate, Kat Crowder, went public on
07:16News Nation with allegations that supported the former classmates. She claimed that Sharilla
07:21behaved in jail as though she were better than the other inmates.
07:24Was she a mean girl in the prison?
07:29Um, I do say that she wanted to be like Regina George. I mean, just the way that she did
07:34her
07:35makeup, the way that she, I mean, it was like she was going out to a club or something.
07:42Grief accusation. Dominic's mother, Christine Russo, didn't feature in any interviews for the crash.
07:48Instead, Dominic's father and sister offered their perspectives on what happened.
07:53Kenzie contacted me through text, basically. And then face to face also. She said she was sorry.
08:01Yeah.
08:02I felt so bad for her. I just kept thinking she killed the love of her life and a friend.
08:07The documentary also touched briefly upon body cam footage as the police told the parents what had
08:12happened to their sons.
08:14What, did they fall asleep at the wheel or something?
08:16I don't know.
08:16We don't know that. We don't know that. Um, so...
08:20So two kids are dead, my son's dead, another kid's dead, and the girl's in the hospital?
08:25She's in surgery right now.
08:27Yet it didn't show Christine's, which was heartbreaking. As well as being an emotional viewing,
08:32there was a moment that further cast Sharilla in a bad light.
08:35After being told about the car accident in which Sharilla was driving and that Dominic
08:40had perished in the crash, Christine, through her grief, questioned the police about what
08:44Sharilla had done. At this point, the cops didn't have any reason to suspect her. Yet,
08:49as we find out in the crash, Christine knew about Sharilla's problematic behavior towards her son.
08:54No one can imagine the pain of losing a child, unless they have lost one themselves. The pain is
09:01forever more. Time does not heal this wound.
09:04The troubling messages. The crash didn't shy away from showing any of the toxic videos and
09:09messages that Sharilla sent Dominic.
09:12Dom tried to break up with her multiple times, even in July.
09:15I kept not, like, working out, whatever. They kept making back up.
09:21Dom would have to call Kenzie's parents, call her, call her mom and stuff and say,
09:25hey, you need to come get Kenzie out of here. She's refusing to leave my house. She's being crazy.
09:29However, there was plenty that they didn't show or mention. Instead, they preferred showing the
09:35prosecution attacking her character for her public social media persona. Yet the private exchanges
09:40were far more intense. Sharilla, when talking to her partner, was known to threaten harm against
09:45herself or towards Dominic following disagreements.
10:01According to Dominic's brother, he'd attempted to break up with Sharilla several times,
10:06only for her to refuse to leave his house and attempt to break in.
10:10In a message exchange with his mother, Dominic told Christine that after trying to break up with
10:14Sharilla, she began acting and driving erratically, leading to him fearing for his safety. A couple
10:20of weeks later, Dominic was killed. So we had a witness who had heard her say those words.
10:26Mackenzie had threatened to crash a car with Dominic two weeks before she did.
10:30In criminal cases, we call that prior calculation.
10:33The rehearsal. When it came to the trial in the crash, the prosecution spoke a lot about the CCTV
10:39footage showing the route that Sharilla took that led to the murder case.
10:42I looked back at the video of Mackenzie turning from Pearl Road onto progress.
10:50It just didn't add up. It was not someone who's driving with the music loud,
10:56throwing beer cans out of the car. This turning was controlled and deliberate.
11:01However, there was one aspect it didn't touch upon, that this seemingly wasn't the first time she'd
11:06taken this exact fateful route, which makes her conviction look even more justified.
11:11Days before the tragedy, Sharilla had driven down that road, a route that she never takes,
11:17perhaps as a form of rehearsal.
11:19What you see at 5.34 in the morning is the Toyota driven by Mackenzie,
11:25slowly approaching a right-hand turn. The turn signal is on, she's applying the brakes.
11:30According to locals, the area is often used as a cut-through road at night. As such,
11:35it looks like she planned where to take Dominic and Davion,
11:38even choosing the morning so there would be less traffic around.
11:41For just a matter of seconds, it's going at an incredibly high rate of speed, just a white blur,
11:48like a missile, into the building.
11:55Hiding conversations. According to the crash, Sharilla and her family acted somewhat normally
12:01to the police when they were interviewed at the hospital in the immediate aftermath of the
12:05catastrophe.
12:21Yet as shown in an episode of Killer Cases, the detective had a bizarre experience. As he was
12:27informing them about what had happened, Sharilla requested if she could ask her mom something.
12:33After the detective agreed, she began speaking in a coded pig Latin-esque language.
12:38The police started asking her questions. Okay, and then I said, wait, I think we need to get a
12:42lawyer. Because I know, remember, you said, don't say anything to them without getting a lawyer.
12:46And he goes, okay, we won't ask you any more questions.
12:49According to officials, Sharilla asked her mother if they could tell the police that she'd had a
12:53seizure when driving. And that's what caused the accident. Yikes.
12:57In the middle of the night, Mackenzie asked, where's Dom? And I had to tell her,
13:01I had to tell her that it was him, that he didn't, he didn't make it.
13:06The duo has also continued this coded method when speaking on the phone while Sharilla has been in
13:10jail, who claims she was using it to hide her conversations from her cellmate or other inmates
13:15if she's speaking in a public space.
13:17Yes, please tell them I don't want to be on protective custody. Please tell them that.
13:29I am.
13:30Okay, just keep that in there.
13:32Okay, just keep that in there.
13:40Okay, just keep that in there.
13:40Okay, just keep that in there.
13:40Okay, just keep that in there.
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