New allegations surrounding convicted Ohio inmate Mackenzie Shirilla are drawing renewed attention online after a former prison girlfriend claimed Shirilla once laughed about being referred to by other inmates as “Shirilla the Killa.”
The claims were made by Shyann Topping, who says she briefly dated Shirilla while both women were incarcerated at the Ohio Reformatory for Women in 2023.
Shirilla entered the prison system after being convicted in connection with a 2022 crash that claimed the lives of her boyfriend, Dominic Russo, and their friend, Davion Flanagan. Prosecutors argued during trial that Shirilla intentionally accelerated her vehicle to more than 100 mph before crashing into a brick building in Strongsville, Ohio.
The highly publicized case later became the subject of the Netflix documentary The Crash.
In a recent interview, Topping described meeting Shirilla shortly after her arrival at the prison facility and said the two quickly developed a close relationship. According to Topping, one of their earliest serious conversations involved false rumors circulating among inmates about her own criminal case.
Topping said she attempted to clear up the misinformation by showing Shirilla official documentation about her charges. She claims Shirilla reassured her not to take the rumors personally before joking about the nickname other inmates allegedly used for her.
According to Topping, Shirilla laughed while saying inmates called her “Shirilla the Killa.”
At the time, Topping said she did not view the comment as alarming because she believed Shirilla had been unfairly portrayed by the media and justice system.
Topping explained that while they were together, Shirilla frequently spoke emotionally about Dominic Russo and Davion Flanagan, leading her to initially question whether the conviction had been justified.
Because the fatal crash occurred while Topping herself was incarcerated, she said most of the information she knew about the case originally came directly from Shirilla.
After being released from prison, however, Topping said she began researching the case independently and reviewing the evidence presented during trial.
That included investigators’ findings that the accelerator pedal was fully pressed moments before impact and that there was no indication of braking before the crash.
Topping said her opinion of Shirilla changed dramatically once she reviewed the publicly available evidence herself.
She now claims she believes Shirilla carefully presented a different version of herself to people around her and said she eventually realized the relationship may have been based on manipulation.
The former couple no longer communicates, and Topping says she has since shared parts of her experience publicly online through TikTok videos discussing Shirilla and the prison relationship.
Meanwhile, Mackenzie Shirilla continues serving her sentence while legal appeals connected to the case remain ongoing.
The renewed attention surrounding Shirilla comes as public fascination with the deadly crash case has intensified again following the release of Netflix’s The Crash, which revisits the investigation, courtroom testimony, and emotional fallout surrounding the deaths of Dominic Russo and Davion Flanagan.
