Lets look into the 7 suspects in more detail:
1) Brett Stiles has many charasteristics to be Red John. He is manipulative, powerful, wealthy and very intellgient. He runs his own cult and has a lot of followers. However, I would think he is too old to be considered a "kid" in ellison farm in 1988. Besides, i would not think that the head of Visualize would be working there anyway. Physically, I do not think he is strong enough to "overpower his victims" as Red John does.For me, his role in helping Lorelei Martins escape convinced me that he is NOT red john. Lorelei could have so easily reveild much more about RJ and possibly even his identity, especially when Lennon was shot. I would not think Red John would have taken that risk to expose himself.
2) Reed Diamond has been antagonistic towards Jane but does not match the physical description of RJ at all nor does he have the power and influence to be a flawless serial killer. The fact that he and Gabe Mancini failed to solve the hotel case in the season 5 episode 1 suggests that he does not have the intellect either.
3) Sheriff Hardy again would not be a "kid" during the Ellison farm incident, he is simply too old and was beaten several times in rock paper scissors by jane which RJ would not allow to happen. His failure to solve the case in Red Hair and Silver Tape suggests that he does not have the mental capacity to be RJ.
4) Ray Haffner is a high ranking member of the CBI and seems to be reasonably smart. He was also a member of Visualize. However, he was easily misled in the season 4 episode 1 (I think the episode about the fitness center) which RJ would not allow to happen. Also, RJ would also not have accidently revealed that he was a member of Visualize as Ray Haffner did, remember, the show has told us that RJ does NOT make any mistakes.
5) Gale Bertrand is the head of the CBI and hence does have a lot of power and influence as Red John would. He is also spoken about John Blake's poem that RJ also did in the season 2 finale. He also does not like Jane.However, Gale Bertrand would not ask Jane's help in poker if he was Rj. RJ is just to egotistic and full of himself. He also does not match the physical description of RJ that Rosalind Harker told us since he is too fat, bald and probably too tall as well. Also, Gale was one of the suspects in season 3 to have murdered todd Johnson. If Gale was RJ, then he would have murdered Todd Johnson himself since he was very close to the holding cell and not had Craig O Laughlin do it.
6) Brett Partridge is also antagonistic towards jane and frequently insults psychics. He also only appears in RJ episodes and has a high voice. Also, the person who murdered Rebecca also seemed to be wearing a forensics jacket.However, I think that he does not have the power and influence to be RJ as he is only a forensics guy. Jane frequently insults him which RJ would not tolerate at all. Brett also mistakenly identified a copycat to be the real RJ which the real RJ would not have done ("I'll show you clever" part). Also, in the season 5 finale, RJ is suggested to be psychic himself by stealing a happy memory from Jane hence this would contradict Brett's behavior.
7) Finally, Bob Kirkland is a mysterious one to me. his interest in finding Lorelei Martins and RJ despite the fact that he is in Homeland Security is very weird to me. His murder of Jason Lennon suggested that he is a RJ disciple or RJ himself but I am not sure. People have suggested that he was Miranda Martins boyfriend which could very well be true. Also, RJ had the list of the 7 suspects while Lorelei was still alive but the Homeland Security broke into Jane's place after she was dead hence there is an inconsistency. We found our that he was working with Alexa Schutlz in order to get period updates on the RJ files from Virgil Minelli. However, I think RJ would just use an accomplice to get those files for him from the CBI.
One thing that puzzled me in the season 5 finale was how did RJ know the names of the suspects? How would RJ know the names of all the people that Jane has shaken hands with? I am suspecting that RJ has another insider in the CBI who is feeding him information like Gale Bertrand or someone on Jane's team like Van Pelt.Also, why did Jane smile when he found the toothpick in his room. I would think that he may have placed wrong information the Homeland guys found and RJ may also have the "wrong" list of suspects.
Somehow, I think that Rj is not in the list of suspects and based on the fact that he knows a lot of Jane's past carnival life, I strongly think it is Jane's twin brother or something like that.
I am really not sure so please share your thoughts and comments!!
