As far as I remember, Red John was the first one to mention Tiger, Tiger
to Jane. He must have known that Jane might bring this topic on the
table at the CBI.
Why would some (high) member of tiger, tiger want his own secret organization to become an open topic in the investigation?
He probably wouldn't. That's why I think that Red John might have used
Tiger, Tiger but he is not a member. It was even hinted by one of the
writers, I think, in an interview, that if there are too many people with tattoos, RJ might not have one.
Taking all 7 on the list into account, this leaves us with Partridge (we don't really know if he had a tattoo), Haffner, Stiles and Kirkland.
It was also said in interviews that the actor was surprised when he was told that he was Red John.
(The
actor of) Partridge said he played him as if he was Red John all the
time. So he would not have been surprised. The actor also confirmed that
his part was over. Partridge indeed is dead.
McDowell (Stiles) said in an interview that he though he was Red John.
So he wouldn't have been surprised either. So it is not Stiles - even
though I'm not sure if he is really dead as it might be that nobody died
in the explosion.
Why was Partridge killed by Red John? It was
probably necessary to have someone in the CBI confirming the death of RJ
and so Partridge needed to be replaced by someone under Red John's control.
So this leaves us with Haffner and Kirkland.
Someone
had a theory that Haffner actually IS Kirkland (Michael Kirkland).
Because he changed his appearance when he turned into Red John. A bit
far fetched but sounds kind of cool.
But we know that Haffner has
a crush on Lisbon, which would also explain why she wasn't killed in
episode 1 of this season. Haffner also fits to every description of Red
John, he has ties to Visiualize, the CBI/FBI and he is kind of a regular
guy (at least compared to suspects like Stiles or Bertram), which Bruno Heller said RJ would be and we would probably be disappointed about him.
We don't know much about Haffner's private live and past before CBI/FBI, so anything is possible.
