By U.S. Crime Desk

Mackenzie Shirilla tried to frame prison as something she did not belong in.

But newly surfaced jailhouse calls have reopened the public debate around her remorse, her self-image, and the way she spoke about the life she lost after the crash that killed Dominic Russo and Davion Flanagan.

The Ohio woman, convicted of intentionally driving into a brick building in Strongsville at nearly 100 mph, is serving two concurrent sentences of 15 years to life for the deaths of Russo, her boyfriend, and Flanagan, their friend. Recent coverage of her case has returned to the spotlight after Netflix’s documentary The Crash and a series of reported jail calls obtained by PEOPLE.

In one call with her mother, Shirilla reportedly questioned whether she needed rehabilitation at all. PEOPLE reported that she discussed life in prison, available programs, and her fears about what would be left of her future by the time she became eligible for parole in 2037.

That detail has become a flashpoint.

To the victims’ families, the word “rehabilitation” does not sound abstract. Two young men are dead. Their futures ended inside that car. Yet in the leaked call, Shirilla appeared focused on whether prison was meant for someone like her, and what incarceration would take from her own life.

The outrage deepened after separate reports described Shirilla referring to herself as a “third victim” of the crash. That phrase angered many observers because the court had already concluded she was not simply another person harmed by a tragedy, but the person responsible for causing it.

The calls also complicated the image Shirilla has tried to present from prison. In Netflix’s The Crash, she continues to deny that she intended to kill anyone, while her family has maintained that the crash was caused by a medical episode rather than a deliberate act. But the court rejected that defense and found that the evidence supported intent.

More recent reporting has added another layer. PEOPLE reported that Shirilla and her mother were heard speaking in a secret language during some jail calls, which prosecutors were able to decode and present during trial. The calls reportedly included conversations held while other inmates were nearby, suggesting Shirilla was sometimes trying to control who understood what she was saying.

Former inmates have also challenged the sympathetic image Shirilla has projected. PEOPLE reported that Shyann Topping, who said she dated Shirilla while incarcerated, claimed Shirilla laughed about the prison nickname “Shirilla the Killa” and later came to believe she had been misled by Shirilla’s version of the crash.

Those accounts do not change the legal record.

But they do change the emotional one.

For Dominic Russo’s and Davion Flanagan’s families, the leaked calls and prison stories reopen the same wound: the fear that Shirilla has never fully centered the two lives lost, only the life she says she lost afterward.

The courtroom may not have heard every call now circulating in public debate. But the reaction has been intense because the contrast is impossible to ignore.

Two families buried sons.

Mackenzie Shirilla worried about prison, parole, rehabilitation, reputation, and the future she might miss.

That is why the leaked audio has become so damaging. It did not overturn the verdict. It did not reveal a new crime. It did something more personal.

It exposed the gap between the remorse people expected and the self-pity many believe they heard.