CLEVELAND, Ohio – “Hell on Wheels” killer Mackenzie Shirilla’s’s parents were always more concerned with winning their daughter’s approval than raising her right, a former friend told The Post.
“From what I see, they didn’t really care about her. They cared more to have her approval,” said Jaina Maynard, who met Mackenzie in middle school.
“Kenzie runs the show – she runs her parents,” the 21-year-old added. “They shouldn’t have been her friend. They should have been her parents.”
Maynard said Steve and Natalie Shirilla enabled their daughter’s “beyond spoiled brat” behavior for years before she intentionally plowed her car into a brick wall in July 2022, killing her ex-boyfriend Dominic Russo and friend Davion Flanagan.
Mom Natalie “kind of seemed like one of the girls,” the old pal recalled.
“She didn’t seem like a full-on mom. She felt like one of our friends.”
But Mackenzie routinely took advantage of that dynamic – and “was really emotionally and verbally abusive to her mother,” Maynard claimed.
She recalled one incident during eighth grade when Natalie was driving a group of Mackenzie’s friends to a haunted house.
“Kenzie said word for word: ‘Mom, shut the f–k up.’ And guess what? Her mom shut the f–k up,” Maynard said.
Moments later, a seemingly unfazed Natalie was back to offering the girls snacks.
“She was so, so nice after Kenzie just treated her like utter s–t,” Maynard said. “Whatever Kenzie says, her mom just does.”
Mackenzie also slammed Natalie as “so effing annoying” and “a bitch” in conversations with her baby-faced pals at the time, according to Maynard.
“Her parents have done everything for her since she was a little kid, and she’s just badmouthing her parents every chance she can get because they won’t buy her the next collection of Bape hoodies,” she explained, referring to streetwear sweatshirts that run between $300 and $600.
“That’s the reason her mom was a bitch.”
Still, Mackenzie was always decked out in “nice clothes, all the new shoes, the nice bags” courtesy of Steve and Natalie, Maynard said.
“Obviously her parents gave her everything…’til she started dating Dom, and Dom ended up providing for her,” the former friend continued – and called Mackenzie “the definition of a spoiled brat.”
Mackenzie, now 21, is serving two concurrent 15 years to life sentences in an Ohio women’s prison after being convicted in 2023 of murdering Russo and Flanagan. She is appealing her conviction for a second time.
Her parents have faced renewed scrutiny for their seemingly permissive approach to their daughter’s behavior and hardline defense of her horrific crimes, as captured in a new popular Netflix documentary, “The Crash.”
“I knew she was smoking dope – I don’t have a problem with her smoking dope,” Steve said in the film, while addressing Mackenzie’s frequent marijuana consumption throughout her teens.
“If you’re going to smoke a drug, that’s the one I believe you should take…you know, she’s not shooting up,” he continued.
The questionable comment got Steve suspended from his teaching job at a Pre-K through eighth grade school outside of Cleveland, where administrators said they were investigating allegations of his “poor judgement” last month.
Maynard praised the school’s decision and claimed the Shirillas weren’t honest about the full extent of their daughter’s drug usage.
“They knew that their daughter was driving and smoking weed and speeding,” she said. “Her mom literally follows her on social media and Kenzie would post this freely.”
The ex-pal claimed Mackenzie regularly posted videos of herself smoking from a bong on Snapchat as early as middle school.
“She would go home and immediately sit in front of the camera, light her bong up and dance in front of the camera and post the videos,” she said.
“I was smoking in middle school, so I would actually get weed from her,” Maynard alleged, while dismissing online rumors that Russo was a drug dealer as “completely false.”
Maynard also accused Mackezie of “severely tormenting” classmates – including one girl who allegedly left the school district after the killer encouraged her to harm herself in middle school.
“It got to the point where this girl ended up checking herself into a mental facility and then left the district of Strongsville altogether…it was horrible,” she claimed.
Steve and Natalie have continued to maintain their daughter’s innocence and recently expressed dissatisfaction about how the Netflix documentary was edited.
The couple also drew backlash during Mackenzie’s sentencing hearing, when Natalie referred to Flanagan as “a new friend” while pleading to the judge for leniency.
“What does that mean? His life was worthless?” the judge demanded, prompting Natalie to apologize to the mourning families.
Steve and Natalie could not be reached for comment.
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