I originally posted
this on The Mentalist wikia and someone told me there was this whole
website dedicated to our theories and that I should post mine here.  Here's my theory; How I figured out that Gale Bertram is Red
John: 


I wrote the following theory almost a year ago
in January before they ever had a list of suspects for Red John.  While
figuring out who my red john suspects were I got excited after figuring
something out and decided to write it down.  I haven't made any changes to
it except for a couple of grammatical errors and changing forensics guy (how I
previously had him written down as) to Brett Partridge.  I put my old
theory in quotes and in italics and am following it up afterwards with a
revision based on all the new information since.

"Why I believe LaRoche
is Red John.

I watched a lot of episodes
of The Mentalist on TNT before having followed every season.  Because of
this I had already seen episodes revealing that the man claiming to be Red John
in the mall was not actually him and the episodes of season 5 shown so far as
well.  After this I had started watching each episode starting from season
1 and knowing fully what lied ahead in the search for Red John I started my own
list of suspects. 

My top suspects have
always been Brett Partridge (for obvious reasons), Kristina Frye, LaRoche, and
Director Bertram. 

The reason why I had Kristina Frye as a possible suspect was due to
the possibility that Red John may be a woman and that it is quite clear that
Red John has a network of allies some of who pose as figure heads of Red John
himself like the man in the mall.  We all know that Red John is suspected
to be as intelligent as Patrick Jane himself if not more and Kristina has shown
on many occasions her ability to keep up if not surpass Jane's wit.  She
also goes on to justify Red John on air and when they made it seem like Red
John was targeting her after all for speaking about him on air she was actually
left alive with a goose chase ending with her acting as though her soul had
left her body (which we all know is BS) to mess with Jane.  She could have
easily fed Bret Stiles this information through another source intentionally to
have her brought in and do this.  They also mention many of the episode
titles have clues towards Red John's identity and there are a lot titles such
as Ms. Red, Red Queen, etc. and her hair color also being strawberry blonde
(red basically). 

Brett Partridge was on my list due to the fact
that each time he showed up at a fake Red John case, a real one was found
shortly after and his voice is eerily similar to the voice of the Red John that
showed up to save Patrick’s life.  But perhaps that wasn't the real Red
John either and just another one of his figure heads as he had apparently taught
this poem to many others as shown by Todd Johnson.  Red John can be very
clever like this by telling his network of friends everything that happens
between him and Jane including distinct details like the smell of his wife and
child to his figure head that was in the mall. 

Bertram was a suspect for a few reasons,
a few which I relayed towards LaRoche himself.  First of all Bertram
quotes at the end of Red Queen a poem by William Blake, same person who wrote
the poem that Red John recites.  This poem writer's name had never been
mentioned before this episode, but was mentioned here by LaRoche and later
again by Agent Cho in Strawberries and Cream.  Cho isn't on my list
because he would not be a disappointing identity for Red John, as the writers
had pointed out it would be, which is another reason why Frye is not as likely
to be him.  In Strawberries and Cream O'Laughlin is taken away somewhat
reluctantly to go with Van Pelt to see Hightower before we see Jane try to trap
Bertram.  This makes it impossible for him to contact Red John and update
him on anything that the team had revealed to him before the mall setting
because he was with Grace.  After Jane informs Bertram to meet with him at
a certain time (not revealing a place) to be picked up and meet with Hightower
Bertram quite clearly picks up the phone to make a call (To Red John?). 
Red John's figure head is at the same mall as Patrick, armed and with paid
security to make a cover up if necessary. He knew this meeting was set up by
Jane to happen between him, Bertram, and Hightower but was careful.  How
could he know if Bertram did not inform him, was Bertram cleverly Red John
himself? I think not.

The reason I believe LaRoche is Red John comes to many many
clues I believe cleverly placed in by the writers.  LaRoche shows a very
clear trait of higher intelligence and insight and the ability to keep eyes on
everyone and move about as Jane mentions like a ghost.  Jane also has
never liked nor been friends with LaRoche.  Red John clearly knew about
Bertram going with Jane to meet Hightower, but perhaps it's deeper than you
think.  Bertram does not show much intelligence and is a media hog who
hesitates to think about whether to go with Jane or not to meet Hightower, this
isn't the traits of a very clever man who plans out that clever decoy and cover
up in the mall.  Bertram had brought in LaRoche as an internal affairs
sort of person in the CBI to keep tabs on everyone including Jane, it is very
likely that Bertram had told LaRoche about everything Jane had told him in
order to keep him aware of what was going on and keep things in order. 
This means that LaRoche would have known about the meeting with Jane, Bertram,
and Hightower as well as the hotel room number given to Bertram, O'Laughlin,
and himself.  Not convinced?  In the hallway before Jane sees Bertram
to talk about the meet with Hightower Jane is stopped by LaRoche where he asks
Jane somewhat sarcastically, as if he already knew, if Hightower was still in
that hotel.  Now we know that the figure head Red John in the mall said
that O'Laughlin had told him about Jane's trap before.  O'laughlin could
not have told him about this after Grace had mentioned it to him due to being
with Grace the entire time.  This means that O'Laughlin had to have realized
the trap after being fed a second room number and the assassin sent just to
make sure or distract.  More clues that point to LaRoche as Red John are
his keen recognition of William Blake's poems and another thing that the Red
John figure head in the mall had said.  When Jane told him he'd move on
when Red John was dead, the man replied "Look at us? We're like Children
on a playground."  This same reference was said to Laroche by Jane
when he brought a bottle of whiskey to his house when trying to free Hightower
from the trunk, he has mentioned "Look at us, are we kids or what?"
when the two of them spared with quirks.  Red John seems to like to reuse
Jane's comments a lot and this seems like one of them, especially knowing that
Jane hired a man to break into his house.  My final thought on LaRoche
being Red John was that in the episode Bloodstream when LaRoche demotes Lisbon
he reasons to her near the end of the episode that his reasons were that he
will take no disrespect.  Just like how Red John will take no disrespect
and murders Jane's family when he slanders his name on television.

In conclusion the episode Strawberries
and Cream is far more important to the identity
of Red John than most realized while watching the episode due to Red John's
knowledge of the meeting in the mall.  Jane thought that by luring Red
John's CBI inside man to the mall Red John would follow by the need to catch
Hightower. When he thought he had the wrong man he quickly dismissed Bertram
and called the team to stop O'Laughlin.  The presence of Red John's figure
head man and his security cover up at the mall actually proves that Jane wasn't
entirely wrong, it proves that there actually were two men inside of the CBI,
one being Red John himself or perhaps just another inside man or figure
head.  Knowing Red John and his paranoid careful actions so far we can't
be sure of that but what we can be sure of is that either Bertram or LaRoche
(most likely LaRoche from my insight on the episode) are also in with Red John
and we can be sure to see them again in the future of this show.Hope you
enjoyed my findings."


So I never posted this online back then like I
had originally wanted to when I was writing it but now that we are so close to
revealing Red John and my old theory being very accurate to current events, I
felt I should share my theory and explanation behind it. Obviously Brett
Partridge and Kristina Frye are not suspects anymore and I explained already
why they wouldn't be beforehand.  Yes, my number one suspect was LaRoche
and now it has been cleared that it is not him, however my number 2 suspect was
Gale Bertram and in retrospect my reasoning behind why I thought LaRoche was
Red John actually supports why Bertram would be him.  I never took into
consideration that when Bertram made that phone call that he himself would be
calling the fake Red John to follow them to the mall.  My previous
reasoning why Bertram might not be Red John, because he seemed to have a lack
of intelligence and other behavioral reasons, was thrown away when Jane pointed
out this season that Red John would be a very good actor, capable of appearing
to be like someone he is not.


Another thing I had mentioned was that Red John
clearly worked with an underground network of people that did his
bidding.  This has been shown to be true with this underground network of
police working together as explained with this club that three of the shows current
suspects belong to with the 3 dot tattoos.


So my theory remains unscathed without anything
to challenge it so far and my main suspect remains to be Gale Bertram, who I
have no doubt will be revealed as Red John in these upcoming 2 episodes. 
He obviously has an underground group that works with him and I had also
mentioned this would be something that may be revealed.  The main point to
my theory was that the episode Strawberries and Cream had a very important
subtle hint as to who Red John is that most people didn't notice or may have
brushed off as an "oh it's TV, not everything is thought out
perfectly" moment.  I however believe the writers DID know what they
were doing here and that they allowed for everyone the chance to figure this
out if they bothered to notice.  If I'm somehow wrong though then I
believe the identity would turn out to be Ray Haffner as Reide Smith is too
obvious of decision and will turn out to be working for Red John, Brett Stiles
is in his final days and Red John would be working up a final blowout before
passing on if he was going to die, and I just have a firm belief that Sheriff
McAllister is not Red John based on attitude.  If I'm wrong then I believe
it would be revealed as Ray Haffner since he is a member of visualize and
something happened at the visualize barn between Red John and the cult, but
this seems far more unlikely compared to my current theory.


I'm staying behind my old theory and we'll all
find out in the next couple of weeks if I'm correct.  I hope this provides
some more insight into some of you who are excited about the reveal and racing
your minds on who he is before the reveal.  Sorry for the lengthy
explanation of my thoughts and theory if you just wanted a simple explanation
but I hope some of you enjoy my insight before the reveal.

Happy Red John hunting!