Subjects of Interest:
Candle Face Chronicles
The Lost Souls
October 17, 2024
I find myself wrestling with the same painful question: how can I help the lost souls if I can’t identify them? This conflict feels especially sharp after a previous encounter, when the family and friends of another lost soul reached out, asking me to stop mentioning their loved one in my podcast. I ended the podcast out of respect for their wishes, yet the dilemma remains. And now, when a spirit like Victim #42 reaches out, full of hope and sadness, it’s as though she believes I’m her only chance left. How can I honor both their requests—the living who need closure, and the dead who need a voice?
In her testimony a few nights ago, the spirit revealed that October 10 was the anniversary of her death and that her birthday had been a few days earlier. Dates like these are invaluable clues—critical markers that can link to missing persons reports or trace back through timelines, offering information into identities that might otherwise remain hidden. Knowing this, I began searching for any missing persons who disappeared in Central Texas on October 10 and whose birthday was shortly before she went missing. It was a long shot, but the urgency in her voice and the importance of those dates left me no choice. Google led me to a listing on TheDoeNetwork that was very similar—a woman who disappeared on October 10, 1992, with a birthday of October 7, 1967. The report even noted that she was last seen wearing a yellow shirt and had a scar “in the scalp area on her forehead,” an uncanny match to the spirit’s description.
It felt like she’d finally been waiting for someone to make the connection. But can I be certain? Even if this spirit is the woman I found in that report, how can I pursue this without betraying her family’s need for peace? The spirits want to be known, but I want to protect the families they left behind.
I think of what it would be like to show up on this woman’s family’s doorstep and say, “Your loved one came to me one night, asking for help.” And then, how would I even begin to explain that she’s missing half of her skull? I’d be seen as a cruel stranger dredging up old wounds, and the family might look at me with horror, questioning my sanity. But the pain in that spirit’s eyes was unmistakable. She trusts me to help her. So, how do I honor that trust without betraying her family’s need for closure?
I can’t just ignore her. I can’t turn my back on the lost souls who come to me, now that my abilities are growing. But every time I think I’m making progress, every time I feel like I’m getting somewhere, I’m dragged back into the same helplessness. How can I help her if I’m stuck here, balancing between helping the dead and protecting the living?
I question if I’m really prepared for this work. Yes, my skills are improving; I’ve reached a point I once only dreamed of. But for what? To be bound by the same restrictions I had before, forever torn between protecting the families and my duty to the lost souls. I see now that I can identify them if I try hard enough. Yet, where does that leave me? Just as desperate as before, only now I know who they are, and I know that I can’t do anything with that knowledge.
I don’t know what to do, but I do know one thing: if that spirit truly is who I think she might be, I won’t give up. I can’t promise that I won’t struggle or stumble along the way, but I won’t stop trying to find a way to help her and all the others who wait in line to speak to me. I may be caught between two worlds, but if there’s even the slightest chance I can free her without causing more harm, I’ll find it.
But tonight, as I sit here, I feel more alone than ever.
Personal Note to My Readers
I find myself struggling with a difficult decision. I believe I may have a name for this lost soul. But as you may have noticed, I haven’t shared her name. I keep circling back to the question: Should I name Candle Face's victims? Should I include her name, bringing her closer to the peace she seeks, or should I protect the families she left behind? I’d like to ask you: what do you think? Is helping the lost souls more important than respecting the wishes of the living? Or are the living, with their fragile balance between healing and memory, more deserving of protection? When a lost soul comes to me, I’m faced with their suffering, longing to be known, and desperation to reach someone who can listen and understand. They’re no longer part of our world, yet their connection to it remains powerful through me. The living, however, carry the grief, often silently. To honor both sides of this mission—to give peace to the dead without harming the living—feels like an impossible line to walk. If I share a name, it could reopen wounds, but if I don’t, I’m leaving a lost soul adrift, missing a piece of their story. It’s a question that I wrestle with daily, and I’m not sure I’ll ever fully answer. I appreciate any thoughts or guidance you can share on this subject. I’m grateful to have each of you beside me in this mission.
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.
0 comments