Heller's assessment of each suspect:
Brett Stiles (Malcolm McDowell): "He's certainly a frontrunner, partly because it's Malcolm McDowell," Heller quips of the recurring guest star, who plays the leader of the Visualize cult. (Not to mention his history of insanity.) "He has the money, he has the resources, and he certainly has the kind of single-minded temperament and lust for power that you would expect to have from someone like Red John," Heller notes
Gale Bertram (Michael Gaston): As the CBI director, Bertram is certainly in an ideal position to carry out the Red John killings. "[Being] well-placed inside a law enforcement organization, gives him a lot of power," Heller says. "He has admitted that he is a duplicitous and a manipulative person already. We know he can play two sides of the same issue very well. He's certainly got the intellect for it. Whether he has the depth of evil required of this guy, that remains to be seen."
Bob Kirkland (Kevin Corrigan): The Homeland Security agent is "a dark horse," according to Heller. "If you were a betting man, he'd be an outside shot I think, but a good dark horse. He is probably the most mysterious of the candidates, and that makes him suspicious. His behavior sometimes, even what we've seen of his behavior, is inexplicable and even murderous. So, if he ain't Red John, he's certainly one weird cat."
Ray Haffner (Reed Diamond): Heller characterizes former CBI supervisor and cult member Ray Haffner as "the sort of Richard Gere-as-villain type. Smiling, charming. Maybe seems a little too shallow to be a serial killer, or too light. ... With Haffner, he always seems smiling and cheery but there always seems to be a dark cloud behind that smile. That, more than anything, would be what made me suspicious of him."
Reede Smith (Drew Powell): Reed certainly has a temper, but does that make him a killer? "He doesn't even try to hide his anger. He's clearly a man with issues," Heller admits. "The question is, Red John is obviously a very, very intelligent person. What would be a better place to hide your real sort of psychopathic anger than behind a mask of anger? Probably most people are expecting Red John to be a calm, cool, collected type of person. If you were Red John and you wanted to disguise yourself, then you would certainly disguise yourself as the kind of red-faced, angry kind of guy that he can be."
Thomas McAllister (Xander Berkeley): "Again, he's well-placed as a law enforcement official," Heller says of Sheriff McAllister. "He, like Kirkland, has a lot of mystery in his past that makes it difficult to judge. He's a dark horse candidate. He's not a Top 3. He hasn't displayed any signs of madness or anger or homicidal tendencies. So, there's no handle on which Jane can put his suspicions — which in itself is suspicious."
Brett Partridge (Jack Plotnick): "You've always got to be suspicious of the nerds," Heller cautions. "He's both a slightly embittered soul and a very intelligent person. Someone who feels they've been underestimated, underrated and mistreated by the world. Demographically, he's right there where a profiler would say, 'Yeah.'" As far as his career choice as a forensic investigator, "That's exactly the kind of job that a serial killer would want to take up. That's exactly the interests that a serial killer would have. [But] he always appears slightly weedy. Is he concealing strength or is he really that flaccid a person? It's hard to tell."
- each suspect can be the reel Red John, the mysterious character of Bob Kirkland let me think he may be a frontrunner suspect.
