Sword and Scale

Episode 274

In the early morning hours of July 31st, 2022, many teens in Strongsville, Ohio were sleeping off the previous night’s rowdy graduation parties. 17-year-old Mackenzie Shirilla, 20-year-old Dominic Russo, and 19-year-old Davion Flanagan were trapped in a mangled car wreck. When daylight finally illuminated the carnage, everyone assumed the crash had been the result of teenage drunk-driving. The more the police investigated, the more questions arose. What started off as a tragic accident quietly evolved into a murder investigation.

Sword and Scale is a true crime podcast covering the dark underworld of crime and the criminal justice system’s response to it. The first episode launched January 1st, 2014 and feature stories of murder, abduction, rape, and even more bizarre forms of crime. It’s the purest form of true-crime where the raw uncensored audio tells the story. Everything from 911 calls to court testimony, interviews with victims and sometimes with perpetrators give listeners a 360 degree look at the seedy underbelly of human nature and so-called civilized society. Told from an everyman's point of view, Sword and Scale goes beyond the news clips and the sensationalist headlines to hold up a mirror to the audience and ask, "Is it us versus them? Or are we just like 'them' too?" Sword and scale proves that the worst monsters are real.