Karmelo Anthony turned a dispute over a seat at a high school track meet into a murder case. Vickrum Digwa convinced police to handcuff a dying man after claiming he was the real victim. Ruben Whitworth threatened to kill his roommate over mozzarella sticks, and two weeks later, he did. In this episode of Cycles That Kill, Dr. Dylesia examines these cases through the lens of hypervigilance, threat perception distortion, rage dysregulation, and the maternal modeling of conflict. The episode also includes a bonus case from Ottawa, Canada, where a fatal stabbing ruled self-defense raises many of the same questions about anger, escalation, and the absence of an emotional brake. These are not just stories about race, self-defense, or who started "it." They're stories about nervous systems organized around threat, homes that failed to teach central nervous system regulation, and the deadly consequences of cycles no one interrupted before they became fatal.

Taylor Parker didn’t just fake a pregnancy, she manufactured a false identity, and when that identity began to collapse, Reagan Simmons-Hancock and her unborn daughter, Braxlynn Sage, paid the price. In this episode of Cycles That Kill, Dr. Dylesia examines the case featured in Netflix’s Maternal Instinct through the lens of identity disturbance, emotional dysregulation, compulsive deception, and maternal emotional unavailability. This isn't just a story about fetal abduction, it’s a story about a woman whose real self never felt like enough, a mother who watched her daughter’s lies grow, and the deadly consequences of a cycle no one interrupted.

Thirty years ago, 43-year-old Delois Anderson was abducted from her Memphis home, taken to a cemetery, and buried alive alongside her son and his teenage friend. While public attention has focused on the men connected to the crime, almost nobody has stopped to ask about Delois herself. In this episode of Cycles That Kill, Dr. Dylesia uses her clinical framework, Origin Mapping, to explore the intergenerational beliefs, survival strategies, and family dynamics that may have shaped Delois’ life. This is not just a story about a triple murder, it's a story about a working mother, the loyalty she may have inherited from the women before her, and the deadly consequences of family rules that go unexamined.

Netflix’s coverage of the Mackenzie Shirilla case, The Crash, left viewers with a big, unanswered question: What the f#@k is wrong with this family? In the premiere episode of Cycles That Kill, Dr. Dylesia examines exactly that, exploring the family dynamics that conditioned Mackenzie Shirilla to commit vehicular homicide, taking the lives of her long-term boyfriend, Dominic Russo and friend, Davion Flanagan. This episode explores how entitlement, enmeshment, image protection, relational aggression, and a lifetime without meaningful accountability created a murderer. It's not a story about one bad moment, it’s a story about a problematic family system, a daughter who was never truly corrected, and the deadly consequences of a cycle no one stopped.