I’m a psychology graduate & DA researcher. I read the text messages between Mackenzie Shirilla and Dominic Russo, and the "monster" narrative misses part of the tragedy.
I wanted to start this by saying that what Mackenzie likely committed is domestic homicide, defined as killing someone you're in an intimate relationship with, and she killed another innocent person too. I do not excuse her behaviour, and I am not involved with the Free Mackenzie movement. I am a true crime and psychology nerd, as well as having a Master's in psychology and research experience in domestic abuse. So I know my sh*t a little bit. I retrieved via Reddit a giant PDF with all the text messages exchanged between Mackenzie and Dom starting 2020, when she was 15 and he was 18, about two years before the murders, and I have spent a considerable amount of time reading them (I haven't finished reading through the document though). Not posting the link here as I believe Reddit may block it. I know that, according to the evidence, there were many signs that Mackenzie was controlling and threatening towards Dom. I also knew that many signs pointed towards her having a narcissistic personality, self-ossessed, no remorse. Etc. However, reading these messages showed me a different perspective. Most people are not born "monsters", but they become such. These messages show the portrait of a child (because that's who she was) who, since the age of 13, was in a relationship with someone older than her, who, on a daily basis (at least for a certain period):
- broke her trust with repeated false promises
- avoided accountability
- blamed her mindset for being upset at him
- alternated between insulting/ignoring her and then sleeping with her
- withheld his affection
- invalidated her emotions
- did not seem to care to be around her much
- gave her the silent treatment. Her behaviour and her words show the signs of a child with physical and psychological symptoms of extreme anxiety, probably with severe attachment wounds - something she wasn't guilty of. Somebody in other threads speculated she might be a survivor of childhood SA, perhaps even within the family, which we have no evidence for and is a big accusation, but often features in similar psychological profiles. Back to Kenz and Dom. It's enough to read through a brief extract to realise how traumatic their hot-and-cold relationship can be on developing brains, and let's add "regular use of drugs" to this mix. It sounds like Dom had his share of problems too, and Kenzie was explosive and had little respect for his boundaries, so it's a tricky situation. Kenzie's behaviour, that ended up in domestic homicide, makes me suspect that she might have developed borderline personality disorder, also called emotionally unstable disorder, a disorder that develops from childhood trauma and abuse, and that, if left untreated, can lead to harm to self and others. Stories of school aggressions and bullying and pretending to be "better than everybody else", with a seemingly shallow persona, also fit into this portrait of despair. Kenzie and Dom both look quite sad in this picture, both mentioning wanting to end their lives amongst other things. Dom wanted to become a millionaire, and Kenzie cares about her appearance, for sure, but this portrait shows that, most of all, she is lonely, very lonely, and desperately attached to her boyfriend, on a rollercoaster where she feels high when she picks up breadcrumbs of love from him - unable to break up from him and break the toxic pattern. To be fair, they're both unable to break up, and in this bleak picture, there are some bittersweet moments when they both seem to care about each other's wellbeing. If you think this is crazy, you haven't experienced a co-dependent relationship - a very common situation for young people who have experienced trauma, in absence of the right support. His avoidant behaviour also seems to be a consequence of his own trauma, and it's likely that his silence and avoidance stem from a fear of her aggressive or controlling reactions. When they're not heard, some people learn to shout louder, and some people learn to crawl down in silence. She doesn't seem to have any loyal friends, and her friends showing up in "The Crash" movie don't look like they understood that much about her or her relationship. Finally, both of their families seem to be at the edges, or even bring further chaos into the picture rather than calm and guidance. As I said before, I am not writing this piece to justify what Mackenzie did, or to ignore all the abusive words and deeds that she did to him before the murders/attempted suicide. I want to show a complementary side of the picture, and most of all, I want to raise awareness of the dynamics that ultimately lead people to develop personality disorders, and sometimes to hurt others. If we don't want more tragedies to happen, we need to be able to recognise the origins of trauma and violence. Validate children's and teenagers' emotions. Give them the nurturing space that they need. They're not "just kids": we need to offer them real mental health support.