Someone on here was like i wish i knew what was in JJ box , a week or two ago well the next episode on the 27th we are going to find out. His box gets stolen and Patrick helps him get it back Lol

I am worried it will be someone we have not been exposed to, or we were exposed to only briefly.  In other words: a no one.

OR Red John won't be a person, per se.  But a group of people who a;; claim to be Red John, maybe so if one is captured the work can continue, so Red John's followers can all say they met Red John, but not the same one (and they wouldn't know that).

Personally, I would love it to be Jane's father or Van Pelt's father. 

Excuse me, I don't speak English! I find  incomprehensible that the "favorite" to be Red John is Partridge. He doesn't have the characteristic attributed to Red John. No money ( is a simple forensic) or  attractiveness (RJ  seduce beautiful women as Lorelei and her sister) or charisma,he seems the typical freak of classe.You can say that he's acting but characters as Minnelli, Mashburn, Winter or even Mars fit better.

the most probable 3 candidates are kirkland,partridge and mashburn and maybe the forth stiles , but i always had a hunch like jane that rj is sheriff mcallister, whom appeared in season1

I accuse Max Winter based on both Red Carpet Treatment and the following theory proposed on the mentalist wikia:

Red John can be Max Winter (Jack Coleman), also called sometimes “Winters”, the widower of the fourth episode of the third season “Red Carpet Treatment”. Bruno Heller dropped us a hint that Red John likes the cold. And Winter is the season of the cold. Winter is the man who gave the shining new gun as a gift to Jane which was used to kill Timothy Carter in the third season finale. In this case, see how the Winter’s bravura into literally manipulating Jane to kill one of Red John’s shills just like he did with the rest of his League to commit evil deeds for him. Notice the way how is sitting on the sofa with his apparent wedding ring. It just mimics the way Jane sits on a couch when drinking a tea and more importantly how Red John was sitting when he went to visit his paramour Rosalind Harker.  He is a Realtor. So he could have easily set up a phony company like “Cutiron Properties” in the first season’s finale. He is someone who is not afraid of getting his hands dirty. As some point during the episode’s run “Red Carpet Treatment”, in the shooting stand scene with the presence of Patrick Jane, Max displays the bravura of a crack marksmanship. RJKshowed an amazing crack-marksman skill in neutralizing his contenders. So does Max in the shooting stand. Crack-marksmanship at its finestAdded by JoeastorAlso, Max Winter bought a gun from an arms dealer from Manuel Montero, the friend and supplier of Todd Johnson, killed by O'Laughlin in order to frame the murder on Hightower. Montero and Johnson were football players along with O'Laughlin. Red John, during his early years of his career in 2000, has initially hid the body of the former Gulf-War soldier and amputee turned policeman Carter Peak, the first male victim and the husband of Janet in a construction site of a shopping center; Is the same  shopping mall  where Janemet Carter ? Max and his son, Jackson, built model airplanes in the workshop-garage. The Las Vegas Zone (with Debonair way, a word used by RJK) is a kind of construction site finished, foreclosed and abandoned, like the house where they find Kristina. Keep in mind that Max is a Realtor. 

red john is max winter

Red John is NOT Brett Partridge!  It's too obvious.  The writers have given themselves a lot of room to define who Red John is and they can choose anyone from Jane's list of suspects, anyone on the CBI team, and they can choose someone new.

If the what the writers are trying to do is create a surprising and enjoyable ending to the series, they won't choose Brett Partridge, because he is probably the most obvious "bad guy" available.  He's a misdirect (probably an homage to Psych's Mary Lightly, who was also creepy but innocent).  That's why it's unlikely that the writers will choose him when they decide who to make Red John.

The identity of Red John will probably depend on how "artististic" the writers of the show think they are.  If they fancy themselves Hitchcocks, then Red John will be either Patrick Jane, Lisbon, Van Pelt, Rigsby or Cho, just because they would want to surprise and shock the audience.

If they suck at their job they'll choose one of Jane's suspects from his list.  One thing that would be essential to the finale would be Jane's sense of shock at who Red John turns out to be, and you can't have that if he turns out to be on Jane's list.  So, assuming that Red John isn't on Jane's list, then that leaves the CBI team, a lot of females (who he said was unlikely, which makes it dramatically more likely for the writers of the show to choose), and lastly someone we haven't met yet.

So my proposal is that Red John is either a CBI team member (Patrick Jane, Lisbon, Van Pelt, Rigsby or Cho), another female on the show (like the CBI press director), or a completely new person.