Candle Face and Austin's Serial Killer Rumors

February 23, 2024

Main subjects:

• Candle Face

As the person these spirits turn to when they want their final accounts told, I have become an unwilling recorder of the dead. Lately, a troubling pattern has started to stand out. The last three spirits who came to me all drowned. Each one said Candle Face was responsible. That has pushed me to look more closely at the thread connecting their stories.

At night, I sit at my desk and go back through what they told me. Each account ends in water. Each one ends with drowning. That raises a hard possibility: Candle Face may be tied to the series of drowning deaths in Austin.

As I looked into the history of the waters where these deaths happened, I found a generational divide in what people call it. Older Austinites still call it Town Lake, a name tied to an earlier version of the city. Newer residents usually call it Lady Bird Lake, after Lady Bird Johnson and her environmental work. Even that split in naming says something about Austin’s shift from a college town into a much larger city.

Then there are the serial killer rumors. Despite police efforts, these drownings remain unsolved, with no clear link except what the spirits themselves have described. One spirit told me he jumped in to save what he thought was a drowning child, only to be pulled under by Candle Face.

As I compare these accounts, the pattern becomes harder to ignore. She keeps showing up in the same place in these stories, whatever the true source behind her may be. Every victim had dismissed her legend. Then each of them died. That raises the possibility that Candle Face is more than local folklore and that she may be targeting skeptics and doubters.

Skeptics see it differently. One University of Texas professor I spoke with, who asked not to be named, offered another explanation. “The human mind seeks patterns, attributing unexplained tragedies to folklore. It may be a coping mechanism rather than evidence of the supernatural,” he said. Even so, the overlap between the legend, the real deaths, and the warnings from the spirits gives me enough reason to keep looking.

Through my writing, I’m trying to understand their world, even when the spirits themselves are hostile. It’s difficult work, but I don’t see another path. These nocturnal visitors chose me, and I’m trying to understand what Candle Face’s role may be in the rumored serial killings that have hung over Austin.

My purpose is to record these stories, honor what these spirits say they endured, and examine this part of Austin’s history as carefully as I can. If I can bring even a little clarity to something clouded by fear and rumor, and if that helps prevent more deaths in the waters of Town Lake (my preferred title), then the project is worth it.