Prepare to be amazed...!!!
I did a little research 'out of the box' on our remarkable English writer Bruno Heller.
Bruno Heller has written 19 episodes of The Mentalist
It's a common knowledge that the head writer only writes his own episodes, because it is important to him that it stays accurate how he wants it.
We can conclude that all the episodes except for the 19 episodes of Bruno Heller are fillers. This is common in the Hollywood scene, that's why they hire other writers to fill in the gaps. This is how CBS earns money, more episodes is more money.
I have researched which of the 7 suspects have appeared the most in the episodes that Bruno Heller has written on his own.
My research list of the 19 episodes that are written by Bruno Heller:
Gale Bertram 5 episodes
Brett Partridge 4 episodes.
Reede Smith 2 episodes
CBI Ron 2 episodes
Sheriff Thomas McAllister 1 episode
Ray Haffner 0 episodes
Bret Stiles 0 episodes
Bob Kirkland 0 episodes
We can conclude that Gale Bertram and Brett Partridge are really important to his own story. Reede Smith was also important, he helped Red John with his FBI access!
The characters with 0 episodes are probably not even made by Bruno Heller!
ThePhantom strikes again..!