Mackenzie Shirilla caught speaking in cryptic code language to mom during jail phone call
Topics: True Crime, Crime, US News, Netflix, Documentaries
Rhianna Benson
Featured Image Credit: Ohio Reformatory for Women
Topics: True Crime, Crime, US News, Netflix, Documentaries
Audio footage of an eerie telephone call between prison inmate Mackenzie Shirilla and her mother has been obtained, in which the double-murderer is heard speaking in code.
The recording has been shared this week by PEOPLE, after the 21-year-old's heinous crimes were unearthed following the release of Netflix's latest true-crime documentary, The Crash.
In the unnerving phone call, Mackenzie - who is three years into her two concurrent 15-to-life prison terms - is heard switching between a strange secret language and English while chatting to her mother, Natalie.
The transition began during a conversation about a man that Mackenzie had been contacting from within the Ohio Reformatory for Women.
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Mackenzie has been behind bars since 2023, when she was sentenced for the murders of her boyfriend, Dominic Russo and pal, Davion Flanagan, after a judge found that she'd crashed her car into the wall of a building at 100mph with the intention of killing the pair.
The killer suggests meeting the mystery man in question, after which Natalie warns her daughter not to.
It is then that Mackenzie switches to an indecipherable language, which she uses for around 30 seconds.
At several points, Natalie - who, in the documentary, stood by her daughter's innocence, believing the July 2022 deaths of Russo and Flanagan were wholly accidental - responds to Mackenzie's comments as if she understands the secret dialect.
"Oh, god," she says, after which her daughter replies: "Oh, god is right, yes."
Mackenzie continues speaking in gibberish again, seemingly changing the subject matter, after which Natalie interrupts again to ask: "Which one?"
Natalie also remarks, 'Oh, great', at another point during the conversation, before checking: "Don't forget you said - can I say a gibberish term just to make sure? I can talk. You're saying rape?"
After Mackenzie confirms, 'Yeah', Natalie adds: "Don't forget, that might not be what really happened. She's being accused of that.
"Don't forget, people say that all the time to get other people in trouble. You see, that's what's happening to you."
This is far from the first time Mackenzie has communicated with her mother using a secret language.
In 2023, prosecutors hired a team to decode one phone call between the duo, who found that she was adding 'eeza' or 'ezza' to the end of syllables.
During one conversation, which was used as evidence to convict her, she allegedly asked Natalie: "Can we tell the police I had a seizure?"
Investigators who assessed footage of the crash that killed Russo, 20, and Flanagan, 19, also proved that Mackenzie had driven her 2018 Toyota Camry directly into Strongsville, Ohio's Plidco Building without attempting to slow down after the trio attended a friend's party.
They argued that the path the vehicle had travelled remained straight and controlled until the moment it hit the wall.
A forensic mechanical expert also confirmed during the bench trial that the car's pedal had been pushed down to 100 per cent capacity for several seconds leading up to the crash, averaging at 98.7mph until the moment of impact.
Prosecutors also referenced a series of controversial TikToks uploaded by Mackenzie in the weeks after the crash, including a vlog of herself being rolled out of the hospital in a wheelchair, and another of her attempting to contact Dominic with a Ouija board.
Mackenzie insists, however, that she'd blacked out ahead of the fatal collision, claiming this was a side effect of her Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS) diagnosis.
She recalled the crash in the documentary, explaining: "It was like 5:00am and we'd decided to head back to Dom's house. I remember turning on the street, and then I'm waking up in the hospital the next day, and my whole life is shattered.
"The whole morning is nothing - it sounds crazy, but I'm not going to lie just because people want to hear a story. I have no recollection of that morning.
"I'm not saying I'm innocent. I was the driver of a tragedy, but I'm not a murderer."