Mackenzie Shirilla's dad breaks silence on The Crash making claim he says 'will get him in trouble'

Mackenzie Shirilla’s dad Steve Shirilla has done his first interview since The Crash released, and the suspended teacher has spoken out about what she thought of the documentary.

Steve Shirilla was suspended earlier this month after appearing in The Crash, with his testimony in the Netflix doc leading the school he works at to investigate him.

Steve has been incredibly publicly supportive of Mackenzie and her case, stating that she is innocent. Mackenzie is currently serving a sentence for the murder of Dominic Russo and Davion Flanagan, lasting between 15 years and life in prison.

Her dad has received particularly criticism for his interview in the documentary, particularly his lackadaisical attitude to her smoking marijuana and her misconduct at school.

In a new podcast True Crime This Week hosted by James Renner Steve Shirilla has broken his silence on the documentary with some bombshell claims about Mackenzie’s case.

Steve Shirilla claimed Mackenzie ‘wasn’t okay’ with one particular aspect of The Crash

Mackenzie’s dad was asked in the podcast what she thought of the documentary, stating that he thought that she was ‘okay with it’.

He did state however that Mackenzie was ‘not okay’ that Netflix left in a segment of their interview where she conferred with her lawyer. The documentary sees Mackenzie, mid-interview, turn to her lawyer and say: “I don't want to force anything and just say too much or sound crazy.”

Steve continued, saying: “Her lawyer was there with her when she did this and she turned to him and wanted to make sure she said what she wanted to say and that she didn't sound like she's just talking gibberish.She he turned to him and they (Netflix) ran with that and let it go and it just makes her seem like it was planned, or a performance, it wasn’t.

“I thought she did well on it. She was beautiful and I think she was very composed. You can see that she's got a couple years maturity to her.”

Steve worries he will ‘get in trouble’ for saying that Mackenzie is only in jail because of ‘the Russo name’

The suspended teacher went on to warn that something he plans to say might ‘get him in trouble’ before going on a rant about why he believes Mackenzie is in jail.

Mackenzie’s dad said: “I think there’s some collusion going on, I think there’s a fix, I think it’s a favour. That last name ‘Russo’ in this town.”

The interviewer, who is also based in Ohio, states that he has been ‘trying to explain to people that having the last name Russo in Cuyahoga County, Ohio is like having the last name Kennedy in Boston’. Steve continued by claiming Russo was a ‘political family’ and then went on to make his most controversial statement.

He said: “Apologies to the Flanagan family right now, if it was just Davion in the car she wouldn’t be in jail. It would have never left the juvenile court. This has to do with the boy’s last name.”

His rant continues, saying that he thinks the judge in the case Nancy Margaret Russo has a relation of some kind to Dominic’s family, though he admits that they are not blood relatives.

Steve accuses Dominic of being a drug dealer, something his family have denied

Mackenzie’s dad went on to claim that the reason they were going down the road where she crashed was actually because Dominic dealt drugs, stating that it was a route to avoid cops.

He said: “He sold drugs, or at least my understanding is he sold marijuana at this time and, if he got pulled over and had marijuana on him, he would go to jail.”

Steve went on to claim that he ‘made’ Mackenzie hold drugs for him and said he had been told this by his daughter, questioning why it was left out the doc.

Christine Russo, Dominic’s older sister, has implied in a recent interview that Mackenzie’s friends ‘Bubba’ and Rosie Graham had spoken about this in the doc in clips cut from The Crash, saying: “They are Kenzie's friends trying to make my brother look bad, those are her best friends.

“They just put my brother down and that's where I draw the line, my brother's not here anymore. So now I'm going to defend him. So I just want to let the world know that they are liars.”

Steve Shirilla addressed viral questions about his shirt and being suspended from his job

Questions online had been raised by Steve Shirilla’s t-shirt in the documentary, which showed a graphic of an explosion with the word ‘boom’.

He mocked suggestions of this, saying he wore a plain orange jumper so people didn’t get ‘triggered’, before stating that it was merch from a YouTuber who has been supportive of Mackenzie’s claims of innocence.

When asked about being suspended from his job as a teacher Steve said he ‘doesn’t know’ if he has a job or not.

He continued: “I'm guessing that I'm not going to, my contract's up in June. So, I would hope that they'll pay me through June. They're doing some sort of investigation.

“You know, this could have been over in a conversation, you know? That's got to be the biggest knee-jerk overreaction that you could ever imagine. I don't know why the school's not backing me up. That's not very Catholic. Where's the compassion, the love, the understanding that they put out to everybody?”

LADbible Group have contacted Christine Russo and the Cuyahoga prosecutor’s office for comment.