Subjects of Interest:
Candle Face Chronicles
The Lost Souls
June 9, 2024
On June 4, 2024, a commenter responded to the April 17, 2024, Candle Face Victim #25 and #26: Ghostly Correspondence journal entry. The commenter believes that one of the victims described in the journal entry is her friend, Sonya Wallace, who was killed in February 1999. Here’s her comment:
A friend of mine sent me this article of yours. She said it sounded a lot like our friend Sonya Wallace. Sonya was last seen leaving a post office in Rockdale on February 19, 1999. She said she had to drop off a letter at the post office. No one knows who she was mailing a letter to. The news said her head was smashed in. Maybe this is farfetched, but if it was Sonya who visited you, please help her. Please find a way to help her escape Candle Face. If you have any questions, please email me (I sent you my email address to your email address).
Could the spirit who visited me on April 17, 2024, have been Sonya Wallace? After researching her name, I found dozens of news reports about her disappearance and the subsequent discovery of her remains. These stories span over two and a half decades since her disappearance.
According to a CBS Austin article, Sonya Wallace was a 15-year-old from Rockdale, Texas, about 60 miles east of Austin. She disappeared on February 19, 1999, while walking from the post office, and her body was found three weeks later in a creek bed in east Williamson County. At the time, she was a student at Rockdale High School and had connections in Rockdale, Taylor, Elgin, and Austin.
The spirit’s April 17, 2024 testimony describes her encounter with Candle Face. She also mentions a series of exchanges with her pen pal from San Francisco, which turns dark when her pen pal becomes obsessed with the legend of Candle Face.
The lost soul mentions how her pen pal’s letters grew more frantic and fear-laden. The pen pal, consumed by fear and the supernatural, disappears, and the lost soul herself encounters Candle Face, leading to her death caused by a large rock to her head.
Here are some similarities between the spirit’s testimony and news reports about Sonya Wallace.
Disappearance and Discovery: Sonya Wallace disappeared while walking from the post office, and her body was found weeks later. The spirit’s testimony also mentions walking from the post office and disappearing afterward.
Geographical Connection: Sonya Wallace had connections in Rockdale, Taylor, Elgin, and north Austin, aligning with the lost soul’s description of moving through these areas and their connection to the legend of Candle Face, which is centered in the Austin area.
Paranormal Elements: The involvement of Candle Face in the spirit’s testimony aligns with the unexplained nature of Sonya Wallace’s disappearance and death, suggesting a paranormal cause.
Cause of Death: Both Sonya Wallace and the lost soul were killed by having their heads bludgeoned. Sonya Wallace’s head was bludgeoned, according to news reports, while the lost soul’s testimony describes a large rock being used to kill her.
Possible Contrasts
Pen Pal’s Location: The lost soul’s testimony mentions a pen pal from San Francisco, which differs geographically from Sonya Wallace’s known connections in Texas.
Wrong Ages: Sonya Wallace was a 15-year-old high school student at the time of her disappearance. The spirit who visited me was much older than 15, likely in her twenties.
Timeline and Additional Missing Persons: The spirit’s testimony doesn’t specify a timeline for the pen pal’s disappearance. Further investigation is needed to determine if a girl from San Francisco was missing from late January to mid-February 1999, which could provide additional context.
Communication Methods: The spirit’s testimony mentions not using Facebook or other social media platforms to communicate with her pen pal from San Francisco, relying instead on letters. This is interesting because Facebook went live for the general public in September 2006, six and a half years after Sonya Wallace went missing. This discrepancy raises the possibility that the spirit could be someone else who died similarly after Facebook started.
Based on the similarities in background, geographical connection, and the circumstances of the disappearance, it’s plausible to suggest that Sonya Wallace could be the lost soul from Candle Face Victim # 25 and # 26: Ghostly Correspondence. However, the significant age differences and the mention of Facebook and social media in the spirit’s testimony raise the possibility that this might be someone who died similarly after 2006.
Recommendations
Further investigation into the connections between the real-life case of Sonya Wallace and the spirit’s testimony is recommended. This could involve:
Investigating whether there was a missing girl from San Francisco from late January to mid-February 1999. This could provide further context and potential connections.
Investigating other potential victims in Central Texas who disappeared similarly after 2006 when Facebook became widely used.
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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