Before The Tr@gedy: Mackenzie Shirilla and her boy...

Dominic Russo and Mackenzie Shirilla; The scene of the crash.Credit : Facebook; Cuyahoga County Prosecutor’s Office

Mackenzie Shirilla complained about blackouts to her boyfriend before the fatal crash that killed him and their friend in 2022, according to text messages obtained by PEOPLE.

On July 31, 2022, Mackenzie Shirilla, then 17, of Strongsville, Ohio, drove her Toyota Camry at nearly 100 mph into a brick building, killing her boyfriend, Dominic Russo, 20, and their friend Davion Flanagan, 19.

Convicted of double murder in 2023, she was sentenced to two concurrent sentences of 15 years to life with eligibility for parole in 2037.

During her trial, prosecutors argued that she intentionally drove her car into the wall of the office building.

Evidence they used to prove their case included surveillance footage showing the car streaking by cameras in a flash before hitting the wall in what sounded like an explosion, as well as information retrieved from the car’s event data recorder (EDR) or its “black box.”

The information revealed that the accelerator was pressed to the floor with no signs of braking in the five seconds before the crash.

In the years since her conviction, Shirilla, her attorneys and her parents have argued that she lost consciousness as a result of a medical condition, however, evidence to support this claim was never presented at trial.

In text messages obtained by PEOPLE from the Strongsville Police Department, in 2020, Shirilla sent a message to Russo saying, “I had a rlly bad blackout today fr.”

On July 2, 2022, she texted him saying she had another episode: “The one I just had was probably the worst black out like pain level I’ve had.”

Shirilla’s case has resurfaced recently because of the Netflix documentary The Crash, which was released on May 15.

In her first-ever interview, she was asked on camera, “How does a medical emergency account for the control of the car?”

Shirilla replied, “I’m unsure because I have no recollection of that morning, but I know nothing about it was intentional because that’s not my character.”

She added, “I have excessive amounts of remorse for Dominic, Davion, both of their families. This was not intentional, and I will do everything I can to prove that to the world and the families, and that’s it.”

On April 27, 2026, her attorneys filed an appeal with the Ohio Supreme Court, saying “there is medical evidence” that Shirilla “suffered from a pre-existing medical condition that could have caused her to black out while driving.”

The filing claims her attorney at the time did not adequately investigate this aspect of the case and did not try to secure expert testimony.

The Ohio Supreme Court has not yet said whether or not it will consider Shirilla’s appeal.

Her attorneys did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment.