Gypsy Rose Blanchard says Mackenzie Shirilla is unlikely to get early parole, a blunt judgment that landed just days after Netflix released The Crash and gave the Ohio inmate her first public platform since her conviction.
Blanchard, speaking in a podcast that aired May 29, said she did not think the documentary did Shirilla any favors. She said the parole board weighs prison behavior, but that remorse and family carry the most weight. If the victim’s family writes against parole, she said, Shirilla would be denied. Blanchard added that she has seen that happen repeatedly with women she has known in prison.
Shirilla, 21, was convicted in 2023 on four counts of murder and four additional crimes after a crash that killed Dominic Russo and Davion Flanagan. Prosecutors said she received a life sentence with parole eligibility after 15 years. The timing matters because the documentary, which hit Netflix on May 15, is the first time Shirilla has spoken publicly at length since the crash.
In the film, Shirilla said, “I’m not saying I’m innocent,” and insisted, “I was a driver of a tragedy, but I’m not a murderer.” She said the crash was not intentional and pointed to postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome as a contributing factor. That version of events sits uneasily beside the conviction itself and the families who will have a say when parole eventually comes up.
Blanchard’s comments came from hard experience. She was paroled in 2023 after serving time for her role in the 2015 second-degree murder of her mother, Clauddine Dee Dee Blanchard. She said Shirilla is young and will need extensive therapy, adding that the point may not sink in for 20 years. For now, Shirilla remains many years away from parole eligibility, and the question is not whether she has a public defense, but whether she can ever persuade a board to look past the crash and the families left behind.
