Is La Llorona’s Daughter the Lady Bird Lake Serial Killer?

June 23, 2025

Main Subjects: La Llorona

• Isabel
• Candle Face

Every time another body is recovered from Lady Bird Lake, the same argument starts again.

Austin police say there is no evidence of a serial killer. Some families and members of the public remain unconvinced. Online, the names “Rainey Street Killer” and “Rainey Street Ripper” have become attached to the deaths.

I spent five months looking at the question from another direction. I went through police statements, news reports, city records, and documented drownings. I mapped cases from 2008 forward and compared what I found with what the Lost Souls had already told me about Candle Face.

The official record explains a lot. I still have questions.

Lady Bird Lake and the Official Record

Lady Bird Lake, still called Town Lake by many longtime Austinites, is a 416-acre reservoir on the Colorado River through downtown Austin. It was created in 1960 and reaches about 18 feet at its deepest point. Swimming has been prohibited there since the 1960s because of safety concerns.

On Mother’s Day in 1964, 11-year-old Inez Rendon and her 8-year-old sister Cynthia drowned while wading in the lake. Their deaths shocked Austin and helped lead to the swimming ban.

People have continued to drown there.

More than 20 drowning deaths have been recorded since 2008, along with several deaths near the lake from other causes. Those include one confirmed homicide and a handful of natural or medical deaths. Most cases have been ruled accidental or otherwise non-suspicious. Pasted markdown

I compiled the documented drownings and related deaths from the 1960s through June 2025, including victim information, dates, circumstances, and official rulings.

Click here to download (.pdf) the complete record of Lady Bird Lake deaths

Patterns in the Drownings

Several things stood out when I compared the cases.

Most drowning victims have been men in their twenties or thirties. Many disappeared after spending time near downtown nightlife areas such as Rainey Street or Sixth Street. Julio Santos, 22, disappeared in 2015. Martin Gutierrez, 25, disappeared in 2018. Jason John, 30, and Jonathan Honey, 33, both died in 2023.

Alcohol was involved in some cases. Toxicology confirmed alcohol in Jason John’s case, and APD has pointed to alcohol combined with easy access to the water during late-night hours as a recurring problem.

Women appear much less often among the drowning victims. They include the Rendon sisters in 1964, an elderly woman in 2015, and one or two more recent unidentified women.

Location also matters. Several deaths occurred around the Rainey Street Trailhead and nearby waterfront. Since 2014, at least five late-night drownings occurred in that area. Others happened near Longhorn Dam and Pleasant Valley, and farther west near Lamar Boulevard and Mopac.

Timing is another pattern. Many deaths happened from late fall through spring. Clusters appeared in 2014 and 2015, again in 2018, and most noticeably from late 2022 through June 2023, when eight bodies were recovered in seven months. Many victims were last seen after 10 p.m., when the parks are closed and visibility is poor.

There are also obvious hazards. The lake has debris, sudden drop-offs, poor lighting, and easy access to deep water. In 2025, a 15-year-old drowned after stepping from a ledge where shallow water suddenly became deep. A lake doesn’t need a killer to be dangerous. Pasted markdown

Click here to learn about “Candle Face Victim #13: Beneath the Surface.”

What Police Say

APD has been consistent. Investigators say the drownings are accidents or isolated incidents and that they have found no evidence of a serial killer connecting the cases.

After the deaths drew increased attention in 2023, police stressed that they had found no common pattern, no connection among the cases, and no evidence of a continuing public safety threat. Medical examiner findings generally support those conclusions.

When actual crime occurred around the lake, investigators treated it separately. Josue Moreno was shot in a car in 2022. Christian Pugh survived an assault in 2019. Neither case was folded into a theory about a killer drowning people in Lady Bird Lake. Pasted markdown

The Rainey Street Killer Theory

Local and national media began connecting the deaths more heavily in late 2022. Families questioned some official conclusions. Social media filled in the gaps.

That is where names such as “Rainey Street Killer” and “Rainey Street Ripper” took hold. People compared the deaths to the Smiley Face Killer theory and started looking for similarities among victims, locations, and circumstances.

The speculation went beyond a human killer. A local ghost tour company even suggested the lake could be cursed and raised the possibility that creating Town Lake disturbed something older.

I noticed that because by then I was already dealing with something else tied to water.

Candle Face.

What Austin Changed

The city responded to the deaths and public concern with several safety measures.

New lighting was installed along parts of the Ann and Roy Butler Hike-and-Bike Trail. Gaps in railings were closed. More warning signs went up. APD and park rangers increased patrols during busy nightlife hours. Bars adjusted service practices, surveillance cameras were considered, and public education campaigns warned people about water hazards and park curfews.

Those steps make sense regardless of what is causing the deaths.

The idea of a serial killer has never completely gone away, though. “Lady Bird Lake deaths” has become part of Austin’s local vocabulary, especially when another person disappears after a night downtown. Pasted markdown

My Candle Face Investigation

Everything from this point forward comes from my own investigation. It is separate from the official findings above.

For those unfamiliar with the Candle Face investigation, victims connected to the entity I named Candle Face used to visit me at night. They asked me to help locate their bodies and identify the people who killed them in Candle Face’s name.

I believe they came to me because I spent more than 30 years working in intelligence and investigations, including missing persons and human trafficking cases. I’m also an author, and I survived Candle Face’s torment when I was a child growing up in South Austin.

At the time I wrote the original entry, readers and I had identified nine of 47 Lost Souls. Most remained unidentified.

Visit The Lost Souls investigation

Several Lost Souls came to me soaked and broken. They described dying in water. Some said Candle Face pulled them under herself. Others described being tricked or pushed into the water by people serving her.

Those accounts were what first made me question whether every death being called an accident should be left there. Pasted markdown

When the spirits stopped visiting, I went back to records.

I mapped the drownings from 2008 forward. I looked at where people disappeared, where bodies were recovered, when the deaths happened, and what police reported.

The deaths weren’t scattered evenly around Austin or across the year. They gathered around the lake, especially at places where people could reach the water late at night.

That's important to me because Isabel was drowned by her mother. Water is part of her story from the beginning.

I also looked for evidence of a human attacker. In the cases I reviewed, I found no reported pattern of bruising, restraint marks, or injuries showing that one person had repeatedly forced victims into the lake. No consistent signs of struggle tied the drownings together.

Water can erase a lot.

The Lost Souls described something different. Heat before the cold. Small hands pulling them down. A silent grip beneath the surface.

Those details kept sending me back to Candle Face.

I don’t believe every drowning in Lady Bird Lake belongs to her. Some have straightforward explanations involving alcohol, poor visibility, medical problems, environmental hazards, or bad decisions near deep water.

Certain cases still don’t sit right with me. Their timing, location, and circumstances line up too closely with things I had already heard from the Lost Souls.

Click here to read about how a tip may have led to the identification of Candle Face Victim #13.

The Case for Candle Face

Candle Face is the name I gave the entity as a child. I now know her as Isabel, the forgotten daughter of La Llorona.

According to the history I’ve been investigating, Isabel drowned when her mother forced her and her two younger brothers into the water. Her mother tried to save the boys. Isabel was left behind.

Her brothers became part of the legend. Isabel disappeared from it.

If Isabel is Candle Face, water makes sense as a weapon. It is quiet. It can kill without leaving obvious evidence of another person’s involvement. It can hide what happened beneath the surface. The deaths also echo the way Isabel herself died.

I have seen other signs during this investigation. The faint smell of water where there should be none. Dripping sounds in an empty room. Equipment freezing or failing when I try to document what is happening.

Then there are the Lost Souls who described being pulled below the surface.

Taken together, I believe some of the Lady Bird Lake deaths belong in the Candle Face investigation. Pasted markdown

Austin keeps looking for a human serial killer stalking Rainey Street, the trails, or the lakefront.

I think they are looking for the wrong kind of killer.

The serial killer Austin fears is Isabel.

The official explanations account for many deaths. Accidents happen there. Alcohol and deep water are a dangerous combination. The shoreline has hazards. People make mistakes.

Those explanations do not close every case for me.

Candle Face uses water because water hides what happened. It mirrors her own death. The Lost Souls have described what waits beneath it, and I have found enough overlap with the real cases to keep investigating.

I believe Isabel is using Lady Bird Lake to judge people who deny her, mock her, or cross her path without believing.

If I’m right, finding a man lurking around Rainey Street will never solve this.

The danger is already in the water.

Lady Bird Lake isn’t empty. It doesn’t forget. People who dismiss what waits beneath the surface may eventually become part of the same record we’re trying to understand.

She is the serial killer Austin fears and the ghost it keeps looking past.

Candle Face is both.

The investigation continues in the three most recent entries below. Each adds to the record on Candle Face (Isabel), the Lost Souls, and the Fugitives. You’ll find every entry to date in The Journal.