Flanagan wasn’t originally supposed to drive home with Shirilla

On the night of July 30, 2022, Russo, Flanagan and Shirilla were attending a “sleepover” at a friend’s home when they decided to leave around 5 a.m. the next day. However, only Shirilla and Russo were originally supposed to leave at that time, according to their friends in the Netflix doc.

Flanagan’s friend, Bubba Turner, said that he and Flanagan had actually made plans for the morning on July 31, so he was planning on driving Flanagan home from the party. Unfortunately, at the last moment, Flanagan changed his mind.

“It was right before they left, me and Davion were talking, he was supposed to work on my truck with me the next morning, and I offered to take him home,” Turner recalled. “It was set that he was coming home with me, and like last minute he goes, ‘I want to shower and maybe sleep for a little bit.’ “

Turner remembered Flanagan giving him a hug and telling him he loved him before he left.

“He goes, ‘I love you.’ I was like, ‘Love you too, bro.’ Very weird. It was the first time we said we loved each other for awhile,” he said.

Flanagan ultimately sat in the back seat of Shirilla’s car.

Russo’s family initially sat with Shirilla’s family at the trial

In the months after the crash, authorities conducted a thorough investigation to determine what caused the fatal incident. Initially, several of the victims’ families assumed that the car had malfunctioned or that Shirilla had been under the influence of substances.

Even after Shirilla was arrested in connection with Flanagan and Russo’s deaths, Russo’s family maintained a close relationship with her family in the belief that it was still an accident.

When her trial began in August 2023, the Russos were still in touch with Shirilla and even stood near her family in the courtroom.

“I felt bad for her,” sister Christine Russo recalled. “I just kept thinking, ‘She killed the love of her life and a friend. ‘I felt terrible for her.’ “

She added, “We still thought she had been drinking or there were drugs involved. They were kids, accidents happen all the time like that. You never in a million years think this girl killed your brother. You just don’t think that way.”

Russo’s dad, Frank Russo, even recalled telling Shirilla, “I said, ‘Kenzie, it’s OK, you gotta try to get through it,’ it is what we were all trying to do, and I was trying to be helpful to her, too.”

However, the Russos’ opinion changed when they saw videos of Shirilla previously threatening Flanagan.

“I was disgusted, and I really think it just really made me mad,” Christine said, while Frank said the entire situation was a “big slap in the face.”

Shirilla’s parents claimed she was the one in danger in the highway incident, not Russo

Throughout Shirilla’s trial, her parents, Natalie and Steve Shirilla, maintained that their daughter passed out from a medical emergency and didn’t intentionally crash the car.

In addition to Shirilla’s family believing that she wasn’t at fault, they also believed that she was the one in danger — not Russo.

One particular moment from the documentary featured a story in which Russo reportedly called his mom after he was driving with Shirilla, and the teen allegedly told him, “I’m going to wreck this car right now.”

However, in the documentary, Natalie and Steve claimed that they had evidence that their daughter actually texted Russo’s mom and said that Russo was the one threatening to crash the car.

Natalie alleged in the doc that she had screenshots that showed her daughter telling Russo’s mom that her son was the one “trying to end my life.”

Scott Flanagan said he has the capacity to forgive if he knew the truth about what happened

Flanagan’s father, Scott Flanagan, appeared in The Crash, where he criticized Shirilla’s behavior while also begging her to tell the truth about what happened. Shirilla has repeatedly maintained her innocence.

“I have the capacity for forgiveness,” Scott said. “I just want to know the truth of what happened that night, and I would be eternally grateful for her to actually tell us how those last few moments were — no matter how damaging to her they might be — to say just to say the truth and let us know and let us grieve properly and have some closure.”

He added that his “biggest hope” for Shirilla is that “she does change” and isn’t “babied” by her parents while in prison.

Shortly after Shirilla’s car was found at the scene, officers found psilocybin mushrooms, marijuana and a digital scale in the car and suspected that drugs were involved in the crash.

Shirilla’s blood work later came back positive for THC — the primary compound found in marijuana — but negative for alcohol or psilocybin.

Although Shirilla was akin to smoking marijuana in the past, her friends claimed that she was not smoking the night of the crash. The friends also reiterated that nobody participated in taking mushrooms that night.

“Kenzie didn’t even smoke that night,” Turner claimed. “She was on a smoke break, ’cause she was coughing up black mucus or blood mucus something. It was really bad.”

Meanwhile, her other friend there, Rosie Graham, reiterated Turner’s statement and doubled down that it got “too late” to take mushrooms, so that’s why they were found in the car.