Ray Haffner set off the bomb! That is why he tried to leave first. Also, if Red John is not Haffner, then why is there a young blonde haired actor portraying Ray Haffner in the next 2 episodes? Because he is RedJohn and they are going to get clues linking him back to a teenager.

Spoiler Spoiler!!!

First of all we have a list of 7 suspects. One of these suspects is red john. This is confirmed in the tvguide by bruno heller himself. So please dont come with ridicilous thoughts like it's van pelt or rigsby or a character we dont see anymore.

Heller states in the guide the following:
There were a lot of hugs when it was over(he means episode 6x08), and a champagne toast. It was really quite moving because, in a way, it felt we were killing off an old family friend. Red john has paid for a lot of mortgages.

Than the person who plays red john(which i think its haffner) states this:
The actor playing him says he was stunned and flattered when he learned that his character one of the seven final suspects was the show's big bad. Earning this little place in pop-culture history was the last thing i ever expected he admits.
Truth be told, I thought I was a red herring.

So what we learned from this is that the list is true and red john is one of the 7.
Even that partridge and kirkland are dead(or pretend to be) i dont exclude them of the 7 suspects.

The question is which character could think that he never thought he will be the real red john but a red herring?

Most of the people here thinks its partridge or nowadays bertram. But partridge was one of the favourites from the beginning so why would a character that is very popular to be the real red john thinks that he was a red herring. Besides the character who plays partridge told that his character is dead and they never used his voice for red john(thats according to him).

Bertram on the other side which is very favourite nowadays is from the tiger tiger organisation, together with mccalister and smith. But what i think is that they are also after red john. Somehow red john is connected with the tiger tiger organisation(he has someone that obeys him which we saw in episode 6x05 by killing that PI girl kira i think). Besides red john is not one of these three. That would be so obvious and so easy to think he is red john.

What also weakens bertram to be the real red john is that he often reports all the information he gets about red john(like he is also working for another person/organisation maybe tiger tiger) and he is too tall and too sluggish to move like red john.

Like i said mccalister and smith are from the tiger tiger. However mccalister would also be perfect red john in my eyes. He has that mystic behaviour of him and he isnt so stupid as the way he looked in season 1. But him and smith are not red john as well.

Which remains stiles, kirkland and haffner.
Stiles is too old to be red john. I also think he is the father or a family member of red john.

Kirkland is a weird guy. I dont know if he somehow has to do with the tiger tiger organisation or maybe his twin michael. But something is not right of his dead. before smith shoots kirkland he turns his head and its just like he swallow something and then gets shot. I also dont know if michael is alive. But i presume that bob kirkland is dead.

For me the logical person to be red john is haffner. Everything of him exactly fits only his length is a little taller than rosalind harker described but thats possible. He is not too tall like the others (bertram and smith are maybe 6.2 or 6.3) he is just 5-10 cm taller than patrick. I will not write everything of him(the way he walks etc. etc..) most of you have writtin in a lot theories.

Also one thing is very remarkable. Haffner always behaves weird when the red john case is going on. He also asks to lisbon and the others to drop the case and kinda irritates patrick in episode 6x05 by telling him despite his smartness he couldn't catch red john. In the previous season where haffner played it was more like he was in kinda obsession and sort of following patrick.

This is also from the tv guide:
simon baker says And the moment of death itself, with Jane straddling red john and looking directly into his eyes of his prey, is one of shocking intimacy. It's almost like a love scene, as perverse as that sounds. Does Red john have a death wish? No but he desperately wants a relationship with jane to the point where he exposes himself and puts him self in jeopardy.

Who was all the time watching and asking questions about jane. For me it was haffner. (He gathered information about him in season 4 and also tried to take away his group, asking to cho and others to get information from them about jane and in season 5 trying to get lisbon to his side). I dont know but it kinda likes haffner wanted to be close to jane.

Now that i described for each suspect what i think, which one of these could think he was a red herring but is the real john?

Oww i was forgetting about something. In episode 6x04 where kirkland is shot. Kirkland and reede smith had an appointment. Kirkland brought 3 coffees, one with milk and sugar, one with milk and one black. Then he said i will take the one that you dont take. smith took milk and sugar so i suppose the opposite of that is with milk. But why 3 coffees and for who was the third one?

In episode 6x06 we see it again. Smiths drinks a coffee with milk and sugar, the interesting is that when lisbon and haffner met each other haffner asks for coffee black. I dont know why but i think the coffee scene has something to do with red john. Normally we saw that red john likes tea, but we dont know if he also likes coffee.

And the last thing i want to say is that episode 6x08 will be the last episode about red john(maybe flashback in his jouth or something can come up in the future episodes). He will be killed by patrick. After that in episode 6x09 the serie will leap two years ahead. Jane will be a wanted man and he is in south america. Lisbon will become a small-town police chief, rigsby and van pelt will get two kids and run a detective agency and cho will be working for the fbi. What i want to say is that according to there new jobs none of them is a inside person for the tiger tiger or red johns disciple or somewhat.

Thanks for reading and feel free to leave a comment.

I have a feeling that it's Haffner. When Cho was speaking to the private detective who attempted to bug their office, it was never confirmed that she actually worked for Red John or Visualize. Even though she agreed with Cho, he mentioned it first and she could have just said yes to avoid being arrested. 



Why, after all this time, would Red John resort to such depths in order to get information about the team? The three dot tattoo is a symbol of the tiger tiger group, but not necessarily Red John. Tiger Tiger has an, as of yet, unspecified agenda, but one that is very different to Red John's. Red John is definitely aware of the group, and may be a member (or former member). He covered very easily have covered up his tattoo with make-up. 



With regards to the other suspects, Bertram is too tall and is bald (unless he wore a wig when he was with Rosalind Harker). Brett Stiles is too old, but definitely has some connection to Red John (maybe he inducted him into Visualize). McAllister is the right age, but unless he's a REALLY good actor, doesn't have the charm necessary to convert people into disciples. FBI Smith is a bit too rotund and even though he has a fear of heights, the therapists recording states that she wasn't sure if this was actually real or not. This could be a misdirect on behalf of the writers. 



Haffner is the right age, height, build and you can definitely see him being charming when he wanted to be. He is a member of Visualize and has been ever since he was a teenager when he was a maladjusted and distressed boy. He insists that the cult helped him. This could indicate that he was part of the Visualize farm project that had that barn. In addition, it's entirely possible that Jane's carnival came to town and that the two of them met, albeit very briefly, when they were kids.



He is formerly an FBI agent in the Organized Crime Division, and is an expert in wiretaps and creative surveillance techniques. So he could easily have used those skills to keep tabs on Jane and figure out the likeliest people Jane would create as a list of suspects.



It is clear that he has a soft spot for Lisbon, which would explain why RJ didn't kill Lisbon at the same time he killed Brett Partridge. Also, Haffner met PJ a long time before Jane met Lorilei. The definitely shook hands and you could see that, initially, Haffner wants to work with Jane and have a positive relationship with him.



Given his connections with CBI, FBI and whoever else his clients are in private security, he definitely would have become aware of the Tiger Tiger group. I'm trying to figure out why he would make Jane aware of this though. Maybe he knew that this group had Jane under surveillance and by helping Jane expose the group he was helping himself (as if the group became aware of RJ's identity through Jane he would be unable to continue killing).



The promo for The Great Red Dragon shows a mass of SWAT team officers surrounding a house and Jane stating that Red John is one of them. Whoever's house it is, obviously has dressed as a Swat team officer in order to hide in plain sight before making his escape. Haffner is the only one of the suspects who would have the knowledge to successfully act like a Swat team member without drawing attention to himself. 

Another point leading me to Haffner is the idea of him being just like Jane. Everyone points to Stiles because of the "mental" stuff, but Haffner is very confident/arrogant (and briskly so), just like Jane. I think they are very similar that way. I can imagine them shaking hands a long time ago as teens or kids.

Just a note about wearing a ring as evidence. If RJ is a masterful, brilliant, step-ahead as we are led to believe no way he allows for a peice of jewlery to identify him. Even most dumb criminals would would remove identifiable jewelry.

It's interesting Patrick trusts Rosalind's judgement that Timothy Carter is not Red John, but when it comes to her description of Red John, aha, Patrick's skeptical of her. Neither one of these three suspects get even close to her description. The hot suspect of the week, Bertram, is the exact opposite of her description.
So what's the solution?! Just take it easy, don't think too much! This is a direct insult to ardent followers of the show. Heller can't just dismiss the first five seasons that easily and pick an arbitrary suspect that feels Red John'ish at the moment. There are a lot of elements a good show needs to hold, consistency is one of them. I hope all these spoilers are false, or at least partially true; even though none of them directly state Red John is Bertram. So I still hope there is this one last twist in the show, I really do.

I have to re-cite the article where the actor playing Brett Patridge actor says he is dead. There is a commenter..."Curious" who does a good job spelling out Haffner. Makes sense and I'm just trying to throw out talking points. So all credit to "Curious."

http://cliqueclack.com/p/mentalist-brett-partridge-really-dead/

I think it’s Ray Haffner because:
* He’s a polished whistler and the psychiatrist’s notes say he whistlers
* “Roy” (written by Lorelei Martin’s sister) could have been “Ray” but as she was dying she didn’t get the middle letter written correctly
* Haffner appears in every episode which has “Red” in it’s name
* He’s witty and charming like Jane, and Lorelei Martins said Jane and RJ are alike
* They shook hands before Jane learned it was someone he had already shaken hands with
* He was a member of Visualize and was there when the murders were committed in the barn
* He said he had a messed up childhood, as someone of RJ’s profile would have
* He’s left-handed and the first episode of season 6, in which RJ is polishing the linoleum knife, shows that RJ is left-handed
* His having worked in both the FBI and CBI enabled him to make connections
* He has the physical strength needed to do some of the things that RJ did