Subjects of Interest:
Candle Face Chronicles
The Lost Souls
July 12, 2024
Tired from all the Hurricane Beryl cleanup, I decided to turn in early. Hours of wasted time browsing Facebook and YouTube videos would have to wait for tomorrow night. I turned off the living room light but kept the kitchen light on, creating a shadow in the far corner of the living room—ready for any lost soul that might want to visit me. The shadow pulsated just as I laid my head on the pillow. I wasn’t in the mood for this, not tonight, but I have a job to do. With a sigh, I sat up and prepared myself for a meeting. An old man in his late 60s wearing a cowboy hat approached me. He began his story.
I’m the typical grumpy old man. I hate everybody and everything. My “wife” [using air quotes] nags all day long. She talks about how I’m not fulfilling her dreams and how everything wrong in her life is my fault. I don this big o’ cowboy hat to shield my face from people’s probing stares when the nagging gets too strong. Then, I jump in my van and drive aimlessly. Boy, I wish I could disappear. And I did—I disappeared. But not the way I wanted to.
One day, when the nagging was unbearable, I got in my van and headed to a gas station. I planned to head south on I-35 to leave the nagging behind forever. I pumped my gas and went inside to grab some coffee and snacks. As I returned to my van, I saw several black helicopters circling it slowly. I could see people inside, wearing military-type uniforms, lowering ropes above my van.
I knew what this was about. I knew they were coming for me. I’m no stranger to the law—I’ve been in and out of jail for decades for the crimes I was caught doing.
The man paused for around 30 seconds, seemingly lost in his own thoughts. He had a satisfying smile on his face. I cleared my throat to covertly nudge him to continue. He took the hint and continued.
“I figured my run was over, and I would spend the rest of my life in prison.”
“Why? What did you do? Why would they want you?” I asked. He looked at me with wide eyes, then quickly glanced at the shadow from where he had entered my house.
The shadow in the corner of my living room grew larger, and the lights in the kitchen began to flicker.
“Quick, turn on the living room lights,” the old man said.
I hesitated. “Now,” he demanded.
Understanding he wanted to make the shadow disappear, I jumped up and turned on the light.
The living room lit up with the occasional flicker. I sat back down as the old man sat next to me. I knew what we had just done would lead to something terrible now or later, but I didn’t care—I had a mission.
“I used to kill for Candle Face. But that was back in the 70s and 80s. Of course, we didn’t call her that back then.”
“Why did you stop killing for her?” I asked.
“I lost my appetite for killing. She was so good to me when I first started killing for her in the 70s. But as time went by, she stopped praising me for my work. The favors she used to grant me dried up. I was becoming just another killer. I wanted to be special, so I killed more and more but got no response from her. Many years later, my wife told me Candle Face would likely come for me one day, but I didn’t care. So, I stopped killing. The last killing I did was in the summer of 1987.”
“Who did you kill?”
“I don’t remember her name, but she was an Asian lady. Those Asian names are hard to remember.”
“Tell me about her. What happened?”
“A fellow Candle Face follower with his own kill list asked me to go with him to take care of a disbeliever near Killeen. Having already completed my list, I decided to tag along with him. This man was a pro. He sure knew how not just to kill but to work over the disbelievers. We got in a car he stole and headed for the Killeen area. We got lucky; we saw her walking around her neighborhood, so we jumped out of the car and pulled her in. We took her past Copperas Cove, killed her, buried her, and placed large rocks over her body. She was never found.”
He paused again, with the same satisfying look from earlier. As he paused, we both looked up towards the ceiling and heard soft but noticeable footsteps upstairs as the lights flickered again.
“It’s just my son upstairs,” I assured him.
“Anyway, we headed back to Austin. Even though it was a satisfying kill, I just didn’t want to do it anymore. The act was great, but I don’t kill for free. I killed for Candle Face’s attention, and she didn’t provide it to me anymore. So, the Asian lady was my last.”
“How were you killed?” I asked, tapping his right arm to see if he had flesh. He did.
“I got so tired of my wife nagging one day that I got in my van and headed off. I got gas—”
“Oh, is this when you saw the black helicopters?”
“Yes, that’s it. When I saw the black helicopters, I called my wife to tell her that my past had finally caught up to me. The helicopters circled lower, their rotors thundering. I could barely hear my wife’s frantic voice on the phone. Suddenly, the side doors of the helicopters slid open, and men in tactical gear began rappelling down, their movements swift and precise. They hit the ground running, surrounding me in seconds. One of them threw a rope around my neck, and before I knew it, I was being hoisted off my feet, the noose tightening. I dangled there, choking, as they lifted me up and away.”
“They hung you? I don’t think the police would do that,” I said with a smirk.
“That’s how I remember it. I know now that it was Candle Face who did it.”
“So, how did you really disappear? The police didn’t do that.”
“I don’t know how it really happened. All I know is what I saw and felt. That rope sure felt real. I was hoping you could figure it out for me.”
“Why should I help you? You were a mass murderer,” I asked with a loud and robust tone.
“I wish I had an answer for you. I don’t know why. I didn’t expect you to ask me that. By the way, why are you now asking questions?”
“I figured, why not? The lost souls are already being tortured by Candle Face’s shadows whether I ask questions or not, so I might as well ask questions. Besides, it was suggested to me by a paranormal investigator from Houston to go ahead and ask questions.”
“Ray, maybe you shouldn’t help me, maybe I deserve this. But I can help you help other lost souls.”
“How can you help me help the lost souls?”
“Ray, I just did!” the old man said with a grin and a soft laugh. “Now turn off the light and let me return to my torture. It’s where I belong, I guess.”
I stood up and turned off the living room light. The old man walked towards the shadow that reappeared in the far corner. As he stepped closer, the shadow seemed to grow, pulsating as if alive. He turned around and said in a rushed voice, “Ray, the arms that are about to pull me in belong to the man who was with me when we killed that Asian woman.”
As he finished speaking, he tipped his cowboy hat, and two long, muscly arms, almost skeletal, emerged from the shadow. They were inky black and seemed to absorb any light that touched them. The arms grabbed the old man with an iron grip around his neck, their touch causing him to shudder visibly. He tried to resist, but it was futile. The arms pulled him slowly and inescapably into the portal. His eyes widened and bulged out of their sockets as he was dragged backward, his fingers clawing at the edge of the shadow in a desperate, final attempt to stay in the light.
The shadow’s grip tightened, and the old man was pulled completely into the portal with a final, powerful yank. His screams echoed briefly before being swallowed. The lights in the room flickered one last time before stabilizing, leaving me alone in the suddenly too-quiet house.
The living room fell into a deafening silence, the only sound of my own heavy breathing. The shadow in the corner seemed to shrink back to its normal size as if it had satisfied its hunger for now. I stood there momentarily, staring at where the old man had disappeared.
Is Candle Face real?
This is a complex and deeply personal question. On the one hand, there's the possibility that Candle Face is a manifestation of my childhood trauma, a figure created by my mind to cope with fear and emotional turmoil. On the other hand, the consistent details, physical evidence, and shared experiences with others suggest that Candle Face may be a genuine supernatural entity. Whether Candle Face is real or a creation of my psyche, her impact on my life has been undeniably profound. Ultimately, the answer to this question is up to you.
How are you able to communicate with the dead? Are you a psychic or medium?
I don’t consider myself a psychic or medium, although many in the paranormal community believe I have some kind of gift, perhaps one that I haven’t fully tapped into yet. Unlike those who claim to communicate with any spirit, my ability seems limited to connecting with Candle Face’s victims and Candle Face herself. While I’m not sure how this works, the connection is strong and focused on these particular Lost Souls, allowing me to share their stories and seek justice for them.
Do you use AI to create your content?
From October 2023 to around March 2024, I personally wrote the short descriptions you see on Google and social media platforms when my web pages or journal entries are shared or found in search results. These descriptions are those brief, 160-character summaries that pop up beside the URL. It was challenging to condense complex ideas into such a small space.
By March 2024, I began letting Wix, my website host, handle this task for me. Their AI generates these summaries much faster and often with more precision than I could manage within that tight character limit. It was a practical decision to let the system take over this small aspect of my work, allowing me to focus more on my writing and investigations.
The web pages and journal entries themselves are entirely my own. My writing encompasses a wide range of topics, including the testimonies of the Lost Souls, my investigations into Candle Face/Isabel, my books like Isabel: The Forgotten Daughter of La Llorona and The Haunted Handbook, as well as other works and research. Everything I write is rooted in my decades of experience in writing (over ten books in 15 years) and my 30+ years of expertise in intelligence analysis, missing persons cases, and human trafficking investigations. The core content you read always comes from me.
By early March 2025, I decided to create a Shopify account to sell copies of Isabel: The Forgotten Daughter of La Llorona, The Haunted Handbook, and to look for caretakers for The Scrolls of Souls. It was a tremendous amount of work to manually transfer all 130 journal entries from Wix to Shopify and recreate the Google SEO titles and descriptions for each entry. Shopify’s blogging platform also required a summary for each journal entry. Summarizing my work was taking around 30 minutes per entry, which became overwhelming and unsustainable.
To streamline the process, I allowed AI to create the summaries for me by uploading each journal entry and letting the AI generate the SEO descriptions, summaries, and ALT text for images. Here's a clear breakdown of what is AI-generated:
- Some journal entry titles.
- Nearly all SEO journal descriptions (up to 160 characters).
- Nearly all summaries (which are only available in the backend and not visible to the public).
Everything else you read comes from me, whether it’s documenting testimonies from the Lost Souls, researching Candle Face/Isabel, or writing my books. The AI simply handles the tedious, mechanical parts of the process, leaving the writing, storytelling, and investigations entirely in my hands.
I review all AI-generated summaries and descriptions to ensure they accurately represent the essence of my writing. My decision to use AI for these backend tasks is about maintaining efficiency and allowing me to focus on what truly matters: writing, storytelling, investigations, and giving voice to the Lost Souls, protecting the Fugitives, investigating Candle Face/Isabel, and exploring new projects. Your experience as a reader is shaped by my work, not by AI.
Why did you end the podcast?
I decided to cancel the Candle Face Chronicles Podcast for two key reasons. First, while the Get Haunted Network is a fantastic community for paranormal entertainment, it wasn't the right fit for the serious and important nature of my work with Candle Face Chronicles. The network's lighthearted tone didn’t align with my mission.
Second, the friends and family of one of Candle Face's victims reached out and asked me to stop discussing their loved one on the podcast because it was causing them too much pain. Their request made me realize that my work, while well-intentioned, was unintentionally hurting those who are still living and grieving.
These reasons led me to end the podcast, but I remain committed to continuing my mission to uncover Candle Face’s origins and methods with a renewed focus on compassion and respect for the living.
Why did you stop using www.candleface.com and start using www.branchingplotbooks.com?
I have had the branchingplotbooks.com domain since 2012, but I transferred the domain to Shopify to use it as my storefront. I needed to do this because Isabel: The Forgotten Daughter of La Llorona can't be published or sold via Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing because of its spiral binding requirement. The same goes for The Haunted Handbook.
I decided to sell them, along with most of my other books, on Shopify because it allows me to provide a more streamlined and reliable experience for my readers. It also enables me to have full control over my work and how it reaches my audience. Additionally, all my books are still available on Amazon (paperback and Kindle), except for Isabel: The Forgotten Daughter of La Llorona and The Haunted Handbook due to their unique binding requirements.
I also chose to use Shopify’s blogging platform, keeping all books, my journal, and the shopping experience located in one place.
I plan on keeping www.candleface.com up for the interim, but it will likely go down as well, or at least be redirected to www.branchingplotbooks.com. In the end, I want my work to be more streamlined and easier for the paranormal community and my readers to find my work, read and help the lost souls, protect the fugitives, and care for the Scrolls of Souls.
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