The Ohio Supreme Court has again rejected an appeal from Mackenzie Shirilla, the young woman at the center of the Netflix documentary The Crash, upholding her conviction for a 2022 car crash that killed two teenagers . The court declined to accept jurisdiction of her latest appeal on June 23, 2026, marking her third unsuccessful attempt to overturn the verdict .
Shirilla, now 21, is serving a sentence of 15 years to life for the deaths of her boyfriend, Dominic Russo, and their friend, Davion Flanagan . Prosecutors successfully argued that in July 2022, she intentionally accelerated her car to 100 mph and slammed into a brick building in Strongsville, Ohio, without ever applying the brakes . The judge who convicted her described her as “literal hell on wheels” .
This most recent legal defeat stemmed from a procedural issue: her petition for post-conviction relief was filed one day late . Her attorneys attributed the error to a miscalculation involving the 2024 leap year, but lower courts ruled the deadline was jurisdictional and could not be excused . The Ohio Supreme Court’s decision not to review the case leaves that ruling in place .
In her appeals, Shirilla’s lawyers have argued that her trial counsel was ineffective for failing to investigate a pre-existing medical condition, POTS, that they claim could have caused her to black out before the crash . However, the courts have consistently rejected this argument. The legal setback comes as public interest in the case has surged following the release of the Netflix documentary, which brought renewed attention to the deadly crash .
As a result of the court’s decision, Shirilla will remain incarcerated at the Ohio Reformatory for Women, with no possibility of parole until at least October 2037 . Despite this definitive ruling, her legal team has filed a motion asking the Ohio Supreme Court to reconsider, arguing that inconsistencies in how filing deadlines are interpreted across the state’s appeals courts unfairly prejudiced her case .
