Here is just a thought. On episode 9 of season 5 at the end, Jane has a list of Red John suspects. When he turns the page, their is like 10 different suspects. It just so happens that Jane's finger shadow covered Brett Partridge'name. This theory may has been mentioned before, but just wanted to point it out again :)

Right now I am convinced that none of the people on Jane's list is Red John.Why?Because he says "I recalled all the names of the 2164 people that I met and shook hands with since Red John murdered my family" which means none of the names on that list are people before his family died.
Now, not that I am sure Red John and Patrick knew before his family murder, but the simple fact that he didn't take into consideration to count people before that event settles it.
The plot will go like this, Patrick comes closer to Red John(or so he thinks) ruling out the names on his list one by one and when we are finally close to him(like there are only 3 or 4 people or even only one person) we will find out that he's not Red John.Why?Because it's a sure thing that the show will go on for at least one more season after season 5.Actually I heard rumors that the mentalist was intended to be a 7 seasons show.My point is that obviously, season 5 is not the last.So this whole 408 hundred names list is another ruse of Bruno Heller to make us interested in the show because it involves Red John, but actually it will be revealed as another fake lead.Like how Heller revealed us Red John at the end of the third season(Timothy Carter), had Patrick killed him right then and there only to find out he wasn't the real Red John, but one of his many disciples.
The reasons I believe this(aside from the fact the show will continue after its fifth season) are Patrick's certainty that Red John is a man he met after his family murder which is not 100% sure.I am not saying Red John is his father, but you can't be sure of that.For all we know Red John and Patrick met when they were teenagers and shook hands at the carnival and RJ was reminiscing about that when he told Lorelei, something like "Maybe we were destined to be enemies.Because we met long before he slandered my name in the media forcing me to teach him a lesson.First time I met him I was with my family at this carnival and there I met this kid who knew some cool magic tricks.After I shook hands with him, he said his name is Patrick Jane and he was there helping his father with the business".How do you know it wasn't something random like that?Or maybe he was an old client of Patrick.Or maybe he is Danny Ruskin, his brother-in-law.Recently I've seen a lot of theories about him being Red John and some of them are quite logical.So the simple fact that Patrick excluded people he has shaken hands with before his family murder means there's a good chance none of those people on his list is RJ.
The other reason is what Patrick says afterwards "I might have missed one or two, but not many".There you have it.Patrick himself admitting and realizing that the list is not complete which means Red John might not even be on the list.Knowing detective shows and the fact that this one is not ending this season, I say there's a far bigger chance that Red John is one of the people Patrick missed.Even if Red John is on the list, how does Patrick know he can't be one of those 949 men he had brief encounters with and never saw or heard from again?After all, we know Red John met and shook hands with Patrick and despite how similar they are, they didn't become friends.So it's very likely Red John is one of those 949 men that only met with Patrick once and that's it.
And what about what Lorelei was saying?I mean, she said "I'm surprised you two did not become lifelong best friends when you shook hands".We know Lorelei wasn't lying because she said that when she was angry at Patrick, so obviously she hasn't realised what she said.But how does she know that?Because Red John told her.And what if Red John lied?Think about that for a second, what if Red John lied?He had no obligation of revealing this piece of information to Lorelei, maybe he told her this to appear he trusts her more than he actually is.After all, we know everyone of his disciples are just his sacrificial pawns.The only way Lorelei can be sure that's true is if she was there with Red John when Patrick shook hands with him.But she wasn't.Unless you say Red John is one of those two guys that show up when Patrick spoke with Lorelei for the first time, one of them was a rich guy who paid Patrick in order to speak with his deceased mother and then when he learned that his mother was actually alive, he came to take the money back or to punish Patrick and the second guy was his bodyguard who beat Patrick to a pulp.I don't know about you, but it's obvious none of those two were Red John and he's not even shaken hands with one of them so Lorelei has no certain way of knowing that Red John and Patrick actually shook hands and that it wasn't a lie.
My point is that in the end there's no certainty that one of those last 408 names is Red John.Actually there's no certainty that Red John even shook hands with Patrick because obviously Lorelei wasn't there when it happened, Patrick would've remembered if he shook a guy's hand and Lorelei was there with said guy.
Obviously the plot will revolve around that list and around season 5 finale we will supposedly get closer to Red John as Patrick's list will only contain like 5 people or so and maybe we will even end the season thinking Patrick found and killed Red John only to learn at the beginning of the sixth season that it was another ruse of Red John to play with Patrick.Something like RJ finding out about Patrick's attempt to catch him and fool Patrick again.The fact that this is not the final season of the mentalist proves it.