Subjects of Interest:
Candle Face Chronicles
The Lost Souls
January 31, 2024
I was contacted by someone who had seen my interview on January 11, 2024, on Beyond Believe Talk, a podcast hosted by Beyond Believe Paranormal Investigators .
During this episode, I spoke about my childhood encounters with Candle Face and detailed interactions with the spirits of her victims. These spirits had been appearing to me at night, seeking help to locate their remains and to identify their murderers. The interview highlighted these haunting visits, despite a peculiar moment where a psychic humorously mischaracterized Candle Face as a candle with a face that is “happy.” Nonetheless, I’m thankful for the platform to share these spirits’ stories as they wished.
The anonymous email I received focused on a spirit I called Victim #11 during the podcast, presenting a deeply troubling account of her experience. She had shared with me her tragic death at the hands of her boyfriend and his accomplices, a story of drugging, assault, rape, and murder, motivated by her disbelief in Candle Face. The email suggested a startling connection between Victim # 11’s story and the real-life case of Roxanne Paltauf, who disappeared in July 2006 under similar circumstances.
The email provided a link to a KVUE article published on January 24, 2024, just two weeks AFTER the spirit’s visit.
The article does seem to align closely with the spirit’s account. Could the spirit and Roxanne be the same? Or could it be just a strange coincidence? The implications are profound, yet I know my role in this matter hasn’t ended. It’s crucial to cautiously approach such revelations, acknowledging the presumed innocence principle until proven guilty. This situation shows the importance of thorough investigation beyond the spirit world’s claims. I urge my readers to engage in research but leave the pursuit of justice to the appropriate authorities, maintaining respect for the privacy and emotions of all involved.
Here are the similarities between the missing person’s report and the spirit’s testimony.
Description |
Missing Persons Report |
Spirit's Testimony |
Race |
White |
White |
Gender |
Female |
Female |
Age |
18 |
Appeared to be 18-20 |
Missing Location |
Austin, TX |
Austin, TX |
Relationship |
Boyfriend age 28 |
Boyfriend in late 20s |
Other |
Family didn't approve of boyfriend |
Family didn't approve of boyfriend |
Last Seen |
In a hotel room with her boyfriend |
In a hotel room with her boyfriend |
Personal Note to My Readers
I want to thank each and every one of you who has been supporting my work, allowing me to give a voice to these lost souls who yearn to tell their stories from beyond. Your faith in what I do has given them a chance to be heard, offering a sliver of peace and recognition they’ve been denied for too long.
Still, it’s crucial to remember that the messages we receive from the spirit world are only fragments of a much larger story. While these stories can offer leads and insights, they must be handled with care and backed by thorough investigation. We can’t act solely on the limited or unclear details they provide—any number of factors might muddy the truth. The spirit who visited me might not fully understand her own circumstances, or Candle Face could be playing another twisted game. Even if she resembled Roxanne Paltauf, it’s possible her story involved someone else, or key details may have been lost or altered.
For these reasons, I urge you to support this effort with an open heart and a discerning mind. Let’s leave the pursuit of justice and legal resolution to law enforcement and other professionals trained to handle these matters. Our role is one of compassion, advocacy, and support—not vigilantism.
By working together responsibly, we can honor these spirits and help bring them a measure of peace, while also respecting the boundaries of our own world and its laws. Let’s continue to discuss these stories in the right way, keeping truth, justice, and empathy at the heart of our actions.
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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