J@ilhouse Code: Mackenzie Shirilla reportedly spen...

J@ilhouse Code: Mackenzie Shirilla reportedly spent five hours on recorded pr!son calls using a secret language while talking to her mother

Mackenzie Shirilla uses a secret language while speaking with her mother in multiple jail phone calls obtained by PEOPLE

Mackenzie Shirilla and her mother can be heard using a secret language to communicate in jail calls obtained by PEOPLE.

In the calls, Mackenzie can be heard shifting into the secret language in the middle of conversations with her mother.

In one call, she drops into the language while the two discuss a man she had been communicating with in jail.

After Natalie Shirilla warns her daughter about meeting the man, Mackenzie starts using the language for about 30 seconds — until she is stopped by her mother, who needs help understanding what her daughter is saying.

“Don’t forget you said, can I say a gibberish term just to make sure…,” Natalie asks her daughter.

Mackenzie Shirilla; Natalie Shirilla.
Mackenzie Shirilla; Natalie Shirilla.Courtesy of Netflix (2)

In another call, Mackenzie drops into the secret language after acknowledging that her new cellmate is in the same room as her. In others, she states before or after using the secret language that she is in a public place with her fellow inmates.

Mackenzie Shirilla.
Mackenzie Shirilla.Strongsville Police Department

The secret language appears to be a standard form of gibberish which breaks a word down into syllables and adds “ezza” into each syllable.

Prosecutors were able to decode the language and present it as evidence during the murder trial after a detective recorded audio of Mackenzie speaking to her mother.

Mackenzie was allegedly heard asking her mother, “Can we tell the police I had a seizure?” from her hospital bed, prosecutors said, arguing it showed she was trying to cover up that she intentionally crashed her car and did not suffer a medical episode, as her defense claimed at trial.

Mackenzie was convicted of four counts of murder, four counts of felonious assault, two counts of aggravated vehicular homicide and one count each of drug possession and possessing criminal tools.

Those charges all stem from a crash that occurred around dawn on July 31, 2022, in Strongsville, about 20 miles south of Cleveland.

Mackenzie, who was 17 at the time, was driving her boyfriend Dominic Russo and their friend Davion Flanagan home after attending a graduation party and then visiting a friend’s house, according to a copy of the probable cause affidavit obtained by PEOPLE.

The car was driving through a residential neighborhood when it suddenly began to pick up speed, according to the affidavit, and eventually crashed into a brick building traveling at over 100 mph. Prosecutors argued that the crash was a botched murder-suicide attempt that had been carried out by Mackenzie because of her fractured relationship with Russo. The defense said that Mackenzie suffered from POTS, a condition that can cause dizziness and fainting, and had blacked out.

Mackenzie is now incarcerated at the Ohio Reformatory for Women, where she is serving two concurrent sentences of 15 to life, making her eligible for parole in 2037.

There has been renewed interest in her case due to her participation in a new Netflix documentary, The Crash.

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