First, I will write an observation that made recently. When RJ paints the smiley face when he kills, he does so with 3 fingers, and the outline of the face looks like an mirrored 6. So it is RJ's way of embedding "666" in every kill. On the first episode of season 6, 666 was written on the wall as well as the pentagram. I think this ties well with the great theory detailing how RJ is attached to the works of William Blake.

Now, regarding the latest episode, I am starting to believe that McAllister might be RJ. I don't know if that is where Bruno Heller is steering our minds, but I think I am starting to see him as RJ. Now let's examine the facts:

1- The person who presumably killed Partridge and presented himself as J. Roth fears birds. Also, episode 2 was titled "black winged red bird", which might be a clue to who RJ really is. 

2- He has an acute sense of smell, shown when he knew that the dead man was a Pizza delivery guy by the smell of oregano. RJ has a smell fetish as demonstrated by the fake RJ when he detailed the smell of PJ's wife and daughter.

3- McAllister said" duck-pond killer case" which shows what he noticed the most about the pond, birds.

4- Fear of birds confirmed on the rooftop.

5- McAllister voice. I am not sure about his voice, but it seemed to me close to RJ's voice.

RJ might be McAllister, or McAllister might be a bait to distract us from the clues that point to the real RJ. However, for me, I would be disappointed if the real RJ was McAllister.

Also, a few questions about the promo of next week's episode:

1- Is the list with Kirkland the same as the one with the 7 suspects by PJ?

2- Was Lorelei Martin alive when Kirkland showed her body to PJ? I am thinking about this since last season because Kirkland infiltrated PJ's room after Lorelei was shown as if she was killed by RJ. If she was really killed at that time, then Kirkland apparently doesn't work for RJ since he won't be torturing PJ for the list in the next episode. However, if Lorelei was alive by the time of Kirkland infiltration, then the list of 7 is no longer valid, and Kirkland wants the real list of suspects from PJ. Heller didn't say that the list is the real one, he just said that the real RJ is among the suspects on the list.

I hope we don't have a bunch of people saying its McAllister cuz he's afraid of birds or pigeons.

That's WAY TOO OBVIOUS!

Biggest red herring in TV history, or the real deal?

End of 6x3, bird flys in front of McAllister and scares the shit out of him. He says "Didn't see that coming". 

I didn't want to believe the pidgin theory, but damnit, might be true. 

Here I am for my last theory.
After I watch ep.6x03 I finally know who Red John is!
it's Sheriff Thomas "Tom" McAllister, I'm 100% sure.
After I've watched this episode I know I was right about RJ's phobia;
This is my previous theory about it:
http://www.whoisredjohn.com/See-a-theory-Red-John/5302
I was wrong about pointing the finger on Haffner, but I was right about the pigeons.

And this is my previous theory about McAllister. Obviously now he is my main (and only) suspect! :D
http://www.whoisredjohn.com/See-a-theory-Red-John/3578

So, that's all! I can't wait to see the great performance of Xander Berkeley as Red John: he will be amazing!

Argh!! 

After leading us to believe McAllister was afraid of heights twice in this episode and hence Red John, he then saves Jane's life by climbing on to the roof with ease. Just as we breathe a sigh of relief, a pigeon flies into the roof of the bell tower and scares the life out of him! Is this what stopped Red John from killing Lisbon? The presence of pigeons in the house?

Is Red John's phobia birds?

Bruno Heller - you are an amazing director for all the details! Thank you for this wonderful show!



(PS, I'm adamant it's Partridge nonetheless but I love that we are being screwed with!)

Let's not forget what Jane taught us, Occam's Razor. The simplest solution is usually the correct one.

If first of all we assume that the list of 7 is correct, as Heller has confirmed this in his interviews. We can move on from there. We can go through the process of elimination by matching descriptions given by the Rosalind Harker, and the latest physical description provided by Sophie Miller. 

Since we are given to understand Red John (Jay Roth) is middle aged, we can eliminate Bret Styiles.

Now, looking at Red John's build we can eliminate Reede Smith, as he his too obese to match the description.

I believe we can now safely say have successfully eliminated two of the seven suspects.

Now our next assumption is going to be to believe what Lennon told us during his die moments were true. We know that Lennon has met and seen Red John in person. But when Bob Kirkland asked Lennon “Do you recognize me?” Lennon replied no. Using this we can eliminate Bob Kirkland from a suspect as Red John.

Moving on to the more difficult suspects. Gale Bertram. This is a rather shaky and circumstantial evidence to use, but bare with me. We were told Red John has short straight hair. Whereas Bertram is bald. Using this, albeit unsatisfying, we can cross Bertram off from our list.

We have reduced our suspect list from seven to three: Brett Partridge, Ray Haffner, and Sheriff Thomas McAllistar.

On to our more dangerous conjecture, we have to believe Heller’s word, and the story up till now, and assume that Brett Partridge is dead. Please understand that this is no more believable to me as it is to you, since many of us are saying he could actually be alive since Partridge’s throat was not slit. And up till now we observed and believed that Red John murders his suspects by first slitting their throats and then carve their body afterwards.  

Now our Red John suspect has been narrowed down to just two: Ray Haffner and Thomas McAllistar.

At the moment, either of these suspects could be Red John, and we have not been given enough facts or evidence to eliminate either one. At a time like this all we have is our intuition. Let’s go back to season one. Out of all seven suspects, the only suspects introduced to the audience were McAllistar, and Partridge. Partridge has always been the number one suspect in this site up until his “death”. Leaving us only McAllistar from season one. Of course, there was that creepy encounter between Van Pelt, and McAllistar. But aside from that, let’s ask ourselves why a famous actor (Xander Berkeley) was used to portray a lowly town sheriff in the very beginning of the show. I cannot think of an answer, except for Heller’s plan to reintroduce the sheriff again in season 6. This stands out slightly to me, and makes me believe McAllistar is the “more likely” candidate for Red John.

For a summary of what we have determined here. We have confidently eliminated Bret Stiles, Reede Smith, and Bob Kirkland by carefully using the evidence provided to us by Heller, and assumed it to be correct. Afterwards we removed Gale Bertram by looking at the physical description for Red John for which he did not qualify. And then we had to eliminate our most promising suspect, Brett Partridge, because we are given to believe that he is dead. Now lastly, although we could not eliminate either Haffner or McAllistar from our list. We used reasoning to determine the more likely suspect, which is Sheriff Thomas McAllistar.

Possibilities I chose to exclude:
Although it may look like there is some kind of alliance between McAllistar, Bertram, and Smith. I do not believe it to be greatly significant as of S6 Ep 2, because the bits of conversation that was provided was too circumstantial to make any speculation. The other theory which is highly regarded is Red John is more than one person because of references to the Great Red Dragon. References from other literature are really not my forte, and I chose to leave it out of the theory.

Thanks for the read, only a more episodes to go!

Lets think logical for a moment.If RJ is one of Bret Stiles or Gale Bertram can you imagine those two people who are always on the tv and on the media as the chief of the CBI and a leader of a religious risking their faces and go to Sophie Miller as Jay Roth??Dont think so...So these 2 men are out.

Secondly lets take a look at RJ's fingers from s06e01 when he talks to PJ on the phone.Now compare these with the huge and fat fingers of Reede Smith from Lisbon's dream...So Reede Smith is out too.

That leaves us 3 suspects.Ray Haffner ,Bob Kirkland ,Sheriff Thomas McCallister.I am sure one of these 3 people is RJ assuming Bret Partridge is really dead.

From these 3 men i will rule out Bob Kirkland too for the simple reason that when he shook hands with PJ ,Lorelei was in prison and she couldnt know that they shook hands and of course because Jason Lennon didnt recognise him.BK is possibly a friend of RJ or a man who tries to kill him for his own reasons.

So 2 suspects left.Between these 2 my pick for RJ will be Sheriff McCallister or Tom as he wants PJ to call him...Red John be must someone who is well connected but a low profile guy too like a sheriff.Also O'laughlin said once to Van Pelt to go to Napa county...and guess who is the sheriff there??RJ must be someone whose appearance would be in the first episodes of the show or at least in the first 2 seasons.Bret Partridge is dead so that leaves us Sheriff McCallister and Bret Stiles but we ruled out Bret for the reason i wrote before.