By Brianna Alleva
Netflix’s new documentary, The Crash, follows the case of Mackenzie Shirilla. Shirilla was sentenced in 2023 with the murder of her then-boyfriend, Dominic Russo, and his friend, Davion Flanagan. All three were in a car accident, which Shirilla claims she has no memory of, and that she did not intend to murder.
This documentary, I believe, is the first time Mackenzie herself was interviewed and the first time her parents seemingly agreed to be involved in it (probably because the film omitted much of the evidence against Shirilla).
Social media has been obsessed with the case and the absurdities in some of the interviews in the documentary. For example, one of Shirilla’s friends was criticized for saying how Mackenzie could not hurt anyone because she doesn’t even like McChickens from McDonald’s.
All of this satisfied Netflix’s goal of making a popular documentary, but the documentary itself didn’t showcase anything new and didn’t even show audiences the full picture. Some facts, like how Shirilla was the only one who put her seatbelt on (unusual for a teenager) and how she had taken this specific route home before, would suggest different things than what the Netflix documentary was trying to lead audiences to believe.
While watching, I did think to myself, though, how interesting it was that the judge convicted her in a way that suggested she had far more evidence than the documentary let us know about.
One thing this documentary did very well, however, was demonstrating how having bad parents really affects your life forever.
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Where to Stream Reality Check:
- Netflix
Before I started watching the show, I knew that Mackenzie’s dad, a teacher, was put on administrative leave for his appearance in the film, so I had some thoughts going into it. But these thoughts were only confirmed tenfold when I started actually watching the documentary.
The first thing that comes to mind, which probably could have helped avoid this whole thing, is: why in the world did her parents let their minor (Mackenzie) live with her boyfriend, who was three years older than her at the time? This unsupervised time could have helped convince Mackenzie she was already an adult and definitely fed into her reliance on her boyfriend.
The next thing was the prevalence of drugs around Mackenzie and her friends. Now, I understand high school kids will experiment, and keeping them away from everything is impossible; maybe don’t encourage it daily. Enough that she was throwing up black mucus because of the volume!
Lastly, but I am sure not actually the last thing, is that if your daughter is doing something bad or accused of something bad, it’s your job as a good parent to teach them how to take responsibility.
Now, this could be for the accident or just little things that probably led up to this: bullying, fights, etc. If you are hearing the same things from multiple people multiple times, it is negligent to dismiss them.
The dad is the biggest culprit of this: if your daughter is suspended for something, which in the documentary it was revealed she was, and when you ask her if she did it, and she, of course, says no, you are a lazy parent if you just believe her and go on with your day.
I am not saying that the car accident and killings were solely the parents’ fault, but everything, and I mean pretty much everything, leading up to this was. Meaning there were plenty of ways the parents could have stopped this horrible tragedy.
What we see from the Netflix documentary, though, is that Mackenzie had her parents wrapped around her finger, and even still does in jail. So, who knows who the adult actually is to blame?