I wish i had put up my personal list before the episode came out.
From the seven names i came up with only 4 were right.
Sheriff Thomas McAllister, Robert Kirkland, Ray Haffner & Brett Partridge.
I thought both Bertram and Stiles were too old to be Red John and Reede Smith was someone i didn't suspect at all.
My main suspect is Thomas McAllister, i always remembered him from the first season because of the actor who played him.
When he showed up in the 30 suspects list, i had a gut feeling it was him.
Many people have already dismissed him and Reed as Red John but i disagree with their reasonings.
Many refer to the fact he was only in one episode of the show so far but Red John has been stated to be a Waldo type character in terms of appearances on the show.
Most people seem to mistake this as he being a character which shows up every couple of episodes but thats not the case.
The point of being a Waldo type character is that he is always in the background but almost never seen.
This fits with the idea of McAllister being Red John as every other time we have seen him in the show has just been a glimpse of him.
It could have been his back we saw when Rebecca was poisoned as both law enforcement uniforms of her killer and McAllister are similar.
His overall demeanor from the episode he was credited to being in was that he was suspicious and creepy.
Patrick has stated before that Red John is a showman and with this we can premise that him loosing to patrick in rock, paper, scissors and being frustrated and baffled was just an act.
Everyone on that list has been one upped by patrick one way or another whether it by destroying a team to a toothpick in a door.
The idea that Patrick made him look silly, thats why he couldn't be Red John is a stretch as he has done that to others as well and unlike the rest his act was easier to pull off.
Another thing i'll mention is that people state that his actor isn't charming/good looking enough, if you haven't seen how his actor really looks like(without the mustache and the shaven beard) i suggest looking at his imdb page http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0075359/.
I also believe that Reede is an accomplice of Red John and that he wasn't just added to fill up the list.
To me he is so out of left field that i believe he has some connection to Red John i believe the list not only has Red John on it but his contact in the FBI.
I would like to add that i think Todd Johnsons murders of cops ties in to the fact that the Sheriff wanted to get rid of certain individuals in law enforcement that he felt were too suspectful of him as in his personality/behaviour and not that they knew he was Red John.
Finally i would like to mentioned the fact that people state that he was too small time to have that many devoted followers and that some were so high up authority wise for him to be a real possible candidate of red john.
Even for a small time Sheriff, everyone who knew of him throughout the episode he was in thought highly of him even though we as the viewer saw the darker side of his personality which no one else knew of.
I believe this charisma he has and a hypnosis type skill he uses has been the reasons why he has such influence over so many individuals.
As for the fact he knew a personal memory of Jane's, i would say that he was either there when Jane was a kid or most likely got the info out of Jane under hypnosis when Jane was inside the Mental Institution.
On the matter of Red John knowing the list, i would say its a suspension of disbelief as Red John is stated at this moment in time to be smarter then Jane and the fact that Jane was able to come out with 7 names shows that Red John should be able to as well.
