Subjects of Interest:
Candle Face Chronicles
The Lost Souls
The Fugitives
Isabel: The Forgotten Daughter of La Llorona
January 27, 2025
In October 2023, I started researching who or what Candle Face really is, who she was before she became Candle Face. I thought I was beginning an intellectual investigation, something grounded in history and folklore. But just days after I started, the dreams began. At first, it was only faint screams, distant and shapeless. Then, the voices took form. Soon, the lost souls came to me, their words filled with desperation. They claimed to be victims of Candle Face and her followers, pleading with me to find their bodies and name their killers.
For over a year, I focused on their voices. I did what I could to help them, to follow their guidance, to solve their cold cases. But now, the voices have gone silent.
This should bring me peace. Instead, I’m worried I didn’t help them, that I caused them more harm than good. But like I mentioned before, maybe it was never about helping them. Maybe it was about distracting the Master Shadow so some of the lost souls could escape.
So I guess my mission transitions into protecting the thirty-one fugitives who escaped. But that original question, the one I asked at the very beginning, still stands. Who is Candle Face?
With the lost souls gone, I have been going through Mr. Smoe’s old boxes. What I have found so far is disturbing. Names, locations, sketches, and notes scribbled in a handwriting that seems almost frantic. Some pages are covered in symbols I don’t recognize. Others list locations pinpointed on an old map of Austin. Some of this information I shouldn’t have. I may need to consult an attorney before I go any further.
But one thing is clear.
I think I know Candle Face’s true identity. No, I’m sure of it.
The name is right in front of me. It’s in the notes, over and over, written in Mr. Smoe’s own hand. But there's something else, something even more disturbing. He calls her Mother. And she calls her followers Children.
What does this mean? Is Isabel Mother to her followers and Candle Face to her victims, a name I coined back in the seventies?
And the most disturbing part. Is Isabel really the forgotten daughter of La Llorona? This will require a lot of research, but a lot of what I have found in those boxes points to it.
I don’t have the full answer yet, but it’s enough to change everything.
Candle Face Chronicles has always had two parts. The Lost Souls and Genesis. The Lost Souls led me to the fugitives, to those who escaped Candle Face’s lair. But Genesis was always meant to be the deeper investigation, the search for what Candle Face truly is. Now, it’s clear that Genesis was never the right name. That phase of the investigation is no longer about a nameless entity. It’s about her.
I’m renaming it Isabel.
For those who have followed Candle Face Chronicles, this is a major shift in the investigation. The question is no longer what Candle Face is. It’s who Isabel was and how she became what she is now: Candle Face. I’ll update my website with the new name and the new focus soon.
I don’t know where this investigation will lead. But I know one thing. The lost souls may be gone, but Isabel is still here.
And she knows I’m looking for her.
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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