Mackenzie Shirilla's Dad Steven Speaks Out, Says What HE Thinks Her Punishment Should've Been: 'I Know My Daughter'

Mackenzie Shirilla‘s dad is speaking out on her crimes and sentencing.

In Wednesday’s episode of the True Crime This Week podcast, Steven Shirilla got honest about his daughter’s jail time. As for what happened that night of The Crash where Dominic Russo and Davion Flanagan were killed, he said he just doesn’t “get it”:

“She didn’t drive directly into that building … She hit that sign first and veered into that building. What would happen if she kept going straight, you know? I don’t know. They’d all be dead? Who knows.”

The biggest point he made, however, is that he believes his daughter didn’t do it on purpose. And he maintains her innocence, just like she does:

“I know when my daughter lies, it’s my daughter. There’s a twinkle in her eye. There’s something I can tell when she’s not being honest with me. She doesn’t look at me, you know?”

Steven continued on, saying what he believes Mackenzie should have been charged with, instead of the double homicide she was convicted of:

“My daughter should have been charged with vehicular homicide. Two counts in juvie court and it should have never left. The juvenile judge took out the aggravated murder thing for the same reason I’m saying … There’s no intent, there’s no prior calculation. There’s no purpose. It’s just not there.”

His reasoning? He says he watched his daughter for “three months” and saw her remorse with his own two eyes:

“[I spent three months] watching her watch every video, every song, every picture about [Dom]. There was a shrine to him in that room. A shrine. She cried herself to sleep every night … She has remorse. She was upset. If you would have heard her when she found out Dom died, if you would have heard the sound that came out of her, it would have crushed you.”

Another point Steven made is that he asked her over and over again if she did it on purpose, and she kept saying “No.” He added:

“If my daughter was that mad and wanted to kill [Dom] that way, Davion would have never been in the car, right? … If she was going to do that to Dom, there were guns all over that kid’s house.”

Wrapping up his thoughts, he said if Mackenzie would have been charged in the way he believes was fair, she would “be out by now.” You can listen to what he had to say at the 42:24 mark (below):