Ok.  Here's another theory of mine.  This time instead of Minelli I wanna go with Haffner but only in a halfway sense.  When Red John first started out he had a partner named Orville Tanner.  Who's to say Red John doesn't always keep a partner around during his killings?  When Red John was talking to Patrick he had both hands free.  Of course you could say he was holding the phone with his shoulder/ear or bluetooth but for the sake of this theory I'm going to say there were two guys there.  One is the voice/mind of Red John and the other does his dirty work/killing.  Haffner does the dirty work since his voice sounds nothing like him and.......Sean Barlow or Virgil Minelli is the voice/mind/brains.  Someone else posted this really cool vid on youtube about Haffner.  Watch it.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EECBjnasoEk&list=WLLSLLkh0wPJZ10LsEC2rwJHk3shVxfvVi