Subjects of Interest:
Candle Face Chronicles
The Lost Souls
The Empty Lot Next Door
December 28, 2023
Let me share the story I wrote about in my award-winning, best-selling memoir, The Empty Lot Next Door. It all began in the 1970s, when my family moved from the city projects to a small house in Austin, Texas. Back then, I was just a kid called Ray, and I was immediately drawn to the empty lot next door—a strange and creepy place where a house once stood, leaving behind nothing but a gaping hole in the back.
Our new neighborhood was packed with kids, and we turned that lot into our own playground. But it wasn’t just an ordinary patch of dirt. The lot came with a grim tale that both intrigued and terrified me. The house that once stood there had burned down years earlier, and rumor had it that a little girl died in the fire. According to the local kids, her ghost still haunted the lot, targeting anyone daring (or foolish) enough to jump into that hole.
Being young and reckless, I couldn’t resist the challenge. I decided to test the ghost story, and it’s a decision I’ve regretted ever since. That’s when I first encountered the ghost I came to call “Candle Face,” named for her charred and haunting appearance. She invaded my dreams and even left handprints around the house in broad daylight.
But this wasn’t just a ghost story—it was about survival. It was about kids left to fend for themselves while their parents worked long hours. It was about the despair, desperation, and helplessness that came with facing both real and imagined horrors. Sibling abuse, bullying, and trauma were woven into the fabric of those days, leaving marks that shaped all of us in ways we didn’t fully understand at the time.
During my childhood, I witnessed Candle Face’s wrath take lives around me. One day, armed with newfound courage, I faced her in a standoff I can only describe as fierce and terrifying. In the end, I thought I had defeated her, banishing her back to hell—or so I believed.
After high school, I enlisted in the Army. My time there allowed me to see the world and sharpen my skills in analysis and investigation. In 2010, I published The Empty Lot Next Door, hoping it would bring closure—not just for me, but for my family and friends who had been touched by those events. For a time, it worked. But closure can be fleeting.
Now that I’m retired and back in Texas, I’ve revisited my past with fresh eyes. After more than three decades as an analyst and investigator, I’ve decided to see if Candle Face was real or just a figment of childhood trauma. If she’s real, is she still out there? And who was she before she died?
Over the years, I’ve received countless emails from people claiming to have encountered Candle Face. I used to brush them off. But being back here made me curious enough to follow up. Most of the people I contacted were too terrified to talk, fearing her revenge. However, one man—an 82-year-old named Mr. John Doe—stood out. Unlike the others, he seemed eager to share his experiences.
I met with him in October 2023 under strict conditions of anonymity. During our face-to-face interview, Mr. Doe shared his account of the fire that destroyed the house next to where I grew up. According to him, the fire started when the father spilled gasoline while cleaning a car carburetor in the kitchen. Tragically, a young boy named Paul died in that fire, his body later recovered from the wreckage.
This revelation clashed with what my friends and I had always believed as kids. We thought it was a young girl who had died, and that she had become Candle Face.
What struck me most about Mr. Doe wasn’t just the story of the fire—it was his belief in Candle Face. He described an encounter near the creek at Wilson and El Paso Streets in 1990 and offered me a chilling piece of advice: “It’s better to believe, just in case. It’s akin to an insurance policy. If you believe, you’re safe. If not, you might end up with a visit.”
Since that interview, my nights have turned into a surreal blur of psychedelic nightmares, like Mr. Doe’s stories. Candle Face appears to haunt my dreams, her voice sometimes rising in shouts, other times fading into whispers. I can’t make out what she’s saying, but the experience is unsettling. It feels like I’m trapped in a space between reality and illusion, surrounded by voices that argue, cry, and plead.
This experience leaves me questioning everything. Are these visions merely hallucinations, or are they messages from Candle Face herself? Whatever the case, it’s clear her story isn’t over.
Maybe she’s been waiting for me all along. Now, I’m searching for answers, hoping that understanding this nightmare might help me bring it under control—or finally bring it to an end.
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