Shocking details Netflix left out of its viral documentary The Crash

The Crash has shot to the top of the Netflix charts this week, but producers left out some shocking details that paint the harrowing case in a new light.

If you’re a true crime junkie, then you probably watched The Crash documentary on Netflix in recent days.

If you got sucked into the case of Mackenzie Shirilla — the teenage girl charged with murder after she drove a car into a building, killing her two friends in the car with her — then you should know that there is a Mackenzie Shirilla documentary on Disney and another on Foxtel that you can stream right now: Killer Cases Season 4, Episode 12, “Murder on Wheels” on Disney; and Mean Girl Murders Season 2, Episode 7 “Under the Influence” which is on Foxtel.

Directed by Gareth Johnson, The Crash walks viewers through the criminal case of a 2022 car crash in Strongsville, Ohio. The driver, 17-year-old Mackenzie Shirilla, was driving her boyfriend, Dom, and his friend, Davion, home from a friends house in the early hours of the morning, when she crashed the car into a brick building, driving over 100 miles per hour. Dom and Davion died in the crash. Mackenzie survived.

The Crash walks viewers through the criminal case of a 2022 car crash in Strongsville, Ohio
After toxicology reports revealed Shirilla had no alcohol in her system, police began to investigate the case as a murder. Her social media presence as an aspiring influencer played a big part in the prosecution’s case, in building the narrative that Shirilla was self-centred, toxic, and, ultimately, capable of murder. In 2023, a judge, Nancy Margaret Russo, concluded that the car crash was premeditated. Shirilla was found guilty of 12 felony charges, including two counts of murder.

While The Crash mostly rehashes what has already been said on this criminal case, the Netflix documentary is notable for the fact that, about an hour into the film, Shirilla gives her first-ever interview from prison, with her lawyer just off camera. Shirilla maintains she had “no intent” to kill her friends. She maintains that she has no memory of the crash, but speculates that perhaps the crash was caused by a medical emergency related to her health condition, POTS, which can cause unexpected fainting.

Perhaps this is why the Netflix documentary makes an effort to include Shirilla’s “side” of the story, including interviews with Shirilla’s parents and friends who believe she didn’t crash the car on purpose. The previous documentaries instead side pretty much exclusively with the prosecution. Tim Troup, the prosecutor in the case, is interviewed in all three docs.

While not a feature-length documentary, there is an episode of a docuseries dedicated to Mackenzie Shirilla streaming on Disney. Killer Cases Season 4, Episode 12, “Murder on Wheels” — which is now streaming on Disney.

Dom and Davion died in the crash. Mackenzie survived. Picture: Netflix
In the Killer Cases episode, Shirilla’s case is presented by the prosecution and the parents of one of the victims, Davion Flanagan. You get a lot more of Davion’s backstory, and more of the body cam footage from the office on the scene at the crash site than in The Crash.

Another detail not mentioned in The Crash, that is featured in Killer Cases: Audio of Shirilla being interviewed by the detective in the hospital, after the crash. On the audio, Shirilla speaks to her mother in a made-up language, similar to pig Latin, which the police translated to: “Can we tell the police I had a seizure, can we tell the police something like that?”

There’s another episode of a different true crime documentary, Mean Girl Murders Season 2, Episode 7 “Under the Influence” — which is streaming locally on Foxtel and gives viewers more insight into Shirilla’s social media presence.

The episode focuses on Shirilla’s ambitions to become a social media influencer, and includes interviews with her classmates, as well as with Davion and Dom’s parents, Davion’s younger sister, and lead prosecutor on the case, Tim Troup. You see a lot more of Shirilla’s online videos, and hear from classmates that don’t believe Shirilla is innocent.