The Crash

A small Ohio city was stunned after a teen crashed her car into the side of a building, killing her boyfriend and a back seat passenger. Mackenzie Shirilla said she couldn’t remember what happened before she slammed head-on into a brick wall at 100 MPH, but said the fatal collision was an accident. Classmates described Shirilla as a spoiled mean girl whose socials were filled with videos of her expensive taste in clothes, the latest TikTok trends, and clip after clip of her smoking marijuana. Investigators learned her relationship with Dominic Russo was volatile, and details of the crash weren’t adding up. They believed the image-obsessed teen didn’t black out behind the wheel…they thought she drove into the brick wall on purpose.

The Netflix documentary “The Crash” recounts the 2022 case, examining evidence which suggests the high-speed collision was a purposeful act. Featuring interviews with the parents of all three occupants and with Shirilla herself, the film invites the audience to draw their own conclusions on whether the crash was intentional and why. The film looks at how Shirilla’s online persona influenced the narrative around her, raising the question of whether investigators misinterpreted Gen Z culture with motivation for murder.

OUR SPOILER-FREE REVIEWS OF "THE CRASH" BEGIN IN THE FINAL 13 MINUTES OF THE EPISODE.

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This show was recorded in The Caitlin Rogers Project Studio. Click to find out more.

About the show: Crime Writers On… is the original true‑crime review podcast, covering the best in true‑crime podcasts, documentaries, TV, film, journalism, and storytelling.

From Partners in Crime Media — creators of These Are Their Stories, the Law & Order aftershow and Netflix's You Can't Make This Up.

Keywords: true‑crime review, podcast review, documentary review, TV review, media criticism, pop‑culture commentary, crime documentaries, journalism, storytelling

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