CLEVELAND — Closing arguments were made Thursday afternoon in the trial of the Strongsville teen charged with murder in a deadly crash.
Nineteen-year-old Mackenzie Shirilla faces multiple charges including murder, felonious assault, and aggravated vehicular homicide. Shirilla, who was 17 at the time of the incident, is accused of intentionally crashing a vehicle with her 20-year-old boyfriend Dominic Russo and his 19-year-old friend Davion Flanagan in the car. Both passengers died.
The prosecution says Shirilla was going 100 miles per hour when she went off the road and crashed into a building near the intersection of Progress and Alameda Drives in northwest Strongsville around 5:35 a.m. on July 31, 2022.
For closing arguments on Thursday, the most intense debate focused on whether Shirilla crashed the car purposely. While Shirilla has said on multiple occasions that she doesn't remember the minute leading up to the crash, the prosecution is demanding a murder conviction, saying she plotted with intent.
The state presented that Shirilla, Russo, and Flanagan had gone to a gathering the night before and spent the night, but the driving path they took when leaving the gathering was a different one than the one taken there. They also assert this different path, which went down Progress Drive, was out of the way and a slower path if home was her destination.
The prosecution claims Shirilla had been to the area of the crash just three days beforehand, and showed the courtroom data of her cell phone being in the vicinity. They suggested this as proof she was familiar with Progress before the day of the crash.
Prosecutors built upon their case of intent by showing video of Shirilla turning from Pearl Road onto Progress in a controlled manner around 5:34 a.m. while going the speed limit and using her turn blinker. They say after she onto Progress, at some point she accelerated in a controlled manner up to 100 miles per hour with control and intent, before going off the road and crashing into a building near Alameda.
Previous coverage:
Some of the evidence the state presented came from expert testimony that stated the gas pedal on the car was pushed to the car's full acceleration capacity, without any attempts to ever hit the brake.
"Accelerator pedal percentages displayed 100% application with throttle, percentages also peaking at 100%," a presentation slide read in the prosecution's closing arguments. "No driver inputted brake application was observed during any of the events associated with the collision, offering evidence that the driver was demanding more power/speed from the vehicle than it was able to produce."
Prosecutors also pointed to Shirilla's historically hostile behavior toward Russo during their relationship, including audio recorded threats to key his car. The state cited Shirilla maintaining "fault" in the crash to MetroHealth System medical professionals.
But Shirilla's defense contend she only admitted fault because she felt "terrible" for what happened.
"She's not saying she committed aggravated murder," asserted defense attorney James McDonnell.
McDonnell firmly maintained many things could have caused the accident, and that intent to kill was not one of them.
He suggested a slew of possibilities in his closing arguments, saying maybe it was just "kids being kids," suggesting Shirilla was speeding for some sort of fun and maybe lost control of the car while trying to avoid an accident, or maybe Russo could have pulled her steering wheel.
McDonnell also put forth the possibility of accelerator misapplication, saying maybe in a panic, Shirilla stepped on the gas pedal when meaning to hit the brake.
"We are really never going to know what happened in that car, much less prove by evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that she purposely drove that car," McDonnell said to Judge Nancy Margaret Russo. "Purposely, it has to be established that at the time in question, there was present in the mind of Mackenzie a specific intent to cause the death of her boyfriend Dominic Russo and her friend Davion Flanagan."
Tim Troup of the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor's Office countered that he and his team had reached the burden of proof needed to prove intent.
"She controlled that car the whole way," he asserted of Shirilla. "She wants us to think she drove the length of Progress Avenue [sic] asleep at the wheel, that she drove down that road that yourself drove down, your honor, and that somehow that car magically steered itself into that wall. Her foot was on the pedal the entire way."
Among those that took the witness stand on Thursday was the lead investigator for the case Detective Zaki Hazou with the Strongsville Police Department, along with Shirilla's mother and great aunt. Shirilla's great aunt testified that Shirilla and Russo had been very much in love and getting along well in the days before the accident.
Natalie Shirilla, the defendant's mother, stated her daughter's 2017 diagnosis of postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome, also known as POTS, could have been a factor in the crash.
"It could be," she suggested to the courtroom.
Hazou testified that after going through Shirilla's social media, he created a file called "reckless driving" in which he put 136 items, including photos of her behind the wheel with cigarettes in her mouth. The prosecution alleges these photos appeared to be cigarettes with marijuana.
Hazou also testified that psilocybin mushrooms and a digital scale were recovered off Shirilla's body at the crash. For this, she is facing charges of drug possession and possessing criminal tools.
Following closing arguments, Russo said she'll deliver a verdict Monday at 1 p.m. Shirilla previously waived her right to a jury trial.