The Crash: Did the Netflix Documentary Make Things Worse for Mackenzie Shirilla?

**Unknown** (0:01)
This is Hidden Killers Live with Tony Brueski and Robin Drake.

**Tony Brueski** (0:08)
Mackenzie Shirilla is serving 15 years to life. Her appeals are exhausted. Her first parole hearing isn't until 2037 That sounds like a long ways away. It's about 10 years. I know. It's like, what? And then Netflix called. She agreed to speak from prison for The Crash. So did her parents. The first time the public heard her voice against the conviction, she sat in front of cameras, soft-spoken and remorseful, insisting she has no memory. A fellow inmate immediately contradicted her, because of course she did, describing a completely different person behind bars. And the Internet has tore this apart. What I am kind of surprised by, but I guess I shouldn't be, is the fact that everybody is shocked that after The Crash, she went right back to being a self-centered, narcissistic little bitch.
That's who she was before.
That's who she's going to be after. That's her identity. That's all she knows. That's the recipe that makes this system work for her. It would be a huge outlier if suddenly she was remorseful and a different person. That would actually make me think you're guilty as shit. If you're suddenly acting very like, oh, I didn't do it.
The fact that she's still being herself actually makes me believe her story more, quite honestly. It's not a deviation in behavior. Robin, you talk about that all the time with arc of behavior. Her behavior didn't change after the accident. Still the same person, 100 percent.

**Robin Drake** (1:41)
Yeah.
Again, just how she presented a few of the details is what were the wobbles and how she presented. That's why the memory loss was a wobble and how she presented that information. The afterthought on the pots is like she owned who she was when she was being natural, who she was when she was having her own conjectures and coming up with her own rationalizations or behaviors. That's where you had wobbles and how she presented.

**Tony Brueski** (2:04)
Yeah.

**Robin Drake** (2:04)
That's why then it became consistent with that life arc because she was extremely predictable with how she presented information, herself, details, everything in life until she came to the explanations about what went on that night. That's why I sell the wobbles right there.

**Tony Brueski** (2:19)
Bob, I got to ask you. She's 15 years to life. The judge already said, I think you're not going to get out in 15 years. I think you're going to keep bearing yourself basically with your poor decisions and your attitude and your shitty everything.
Netflix comes knocking, hey, we want to do a documentary about this. You brought your daughter, about you Mackenzie. You're the attorney. What do you say? Knowing that, well, there's some appeals we're going to be trying to do, I want to try and make this go somewhere.
Does going on Netflix and sharing your story seem like a great idea knowing who your clients are? What would you be advising them when Netflix comes knocking?

**Bob Motta** (3:00)
I mean, that's a client by client determination.

**Tony Brueski** (3:04)
These are your clients.

**Bob Motta** (3:06)
For this particular client, and look, I mean, the direct appeal has been denied. At this point, she's blown, she blew the time statute on the post-conviction petition, which leaves her, just so people have an understanding, that the merits that she could have brought up in that initial first post-conviction petition had it been filed timely, would have been the merits of the things that weren't done at trial. Now, the only path that she has is newly discovered evidence, and then down the road, ineffective assistant counsel. That's the only path she has. So all the things that we were talking about, the neurologists that showed up and said, well, yeah, that's possible. That doesn't exist as a thing that she can use anymore. It's not like that's dead in the water.

**Robin Drake** (4:02)
So, I mean, I think it was invented anyway.

**Bob Motta** (4:05)
Sorry, I mean, it comes to me. I'm telling her, I don't think it's a good idea. You know, we have something that's pending in front of the Ohio Supreme Court. You know, I don't know how you're going to come off. You know, I've sat with you in a room. And to be honest with you, you don't come off that great. Now, if what's going to happen to you eventually, and I'd be telling her all this, you know, Mackenzie, is that this reality that's about to befall you in the next few months as you get into prison, is that somebody's going to knock the shit out of you in there. You're going to walk around with your my shit don't stink thing and thinking you're the queen and somebody, a woman in prison, is going to knock you into next week and you're going to soon realize that you ain't what you thought you were.