SPOILER WARNING: This article contains heavy spoilers about the main plot of the series that you might not want to know. Continue at your own risk.
Raymond "Ray" Haffner was a former supervising agent at CBI and Jane's boss in early Season 4. His first appearance was in Little Red Book. In Season 5 episode The Red Barn, he said that he was leaving the CBI, in favor of opening a private agency of investigations, to work as a private detective. He was a member of Visualize, and a probable friend of so called cult leader Bret Stiles and his executive Jason Cooper. Formerly, he was an FBI agent in the Organized Crime Division, and was an expert in wiretaps and creative surveillance techniques.
Haffner, according Lisbon's words, was born in 1967 (like the actor who portrays him, Reed Diamond). He was the Senior Field Agent and chief of the new team when Patrick Jane was reinstated as a CBI consultant, after Timothy Carter's murder. Jane was obviously displeased that Lisbon was no longer with the CBI and worked to undermine his new boss while simultaneously trying to have his old team reinstated.
He was one of the seven final people on Jane's List of Suspects to be Red John. In Fire and Brimstone, he died in the explosion of a bomb planted by Red John at Jane's house.
Appearances[]
Little Red Book[]
Jane's handshake with Ray
The entire team is reassigned, and Bertram admits that he needs Jane because of his record. Even so, Jane got off easy. The rest of the team was either on suspension or reassigned to odious tasks like door security. A new team fills in.
Jane uses his skills to dismantle Haffner’s team and replace it with his own, starting with making sure they all did not like, or trust him. Back at the office, Haffner decides he needs help with Jane. Haffner tells Cho that if he will spy on Jane for him, he will let Cho return to the team. Meanwhile, Jane is already plotting to get rid of the whole team. Jane tells Haffner he wants to go back to the victim’s house and look around for evidence. Haffner plays perfectly into Jane’s hands by sending another team mate with him. One who is easily hypnotized by Jane while they are there.
Jane decides it is time to spring the trap and put this case to bed at the same time. He sends Cho and Rigsby to the house to beat Haffner to Kuzmenko’s book of high-profile lovers, having convinced Haffner that it is probably some politician’s wife that has gotten him in this level of trouble. Cho then goes and tells Haffner of the plan, which makes you wonder even more what is going on with him. After the heads up, Haffner meets them at the door with the book in hand and berates Jane for his efforts to beat him to the killer. While his shadow was hypnotized, Jane planted that book to make Haffner look bad in the end. Jane close the case, with Haffner looking foolish for running off after false leads. Bertram, of course, is mad at Jane for being a problem, but Jane makes it clear that unless Lisbon is brought back, he plans to continue being a problem. Bertram has no choice but to reinstate the whole team. Bertram is disappointed, but Haffner is angry and very annoyed with Jane.
The Red Barn[]
Haffner and Lisbon
Haffner returns in The Red Barn, at Lisbon's anniversary celebration where he asks for a chance to share a drink with her which she agrees to. At this meeting, he offers her a job at a new private security agency where she will have a substantial pay raise. She refuses, but he keeps pushing her, telling her to think about it. He comes by her office where she again says no. He inadvertently reveals that he is a member of Visualize and has been ever since he was a teenager when he was a maladjusted and distressed boy.
He insists that the cult helped him. He later reappears and is outraged when Holly Preston is only being charged with one count of manslaughter of the chief of Visualize farm and not three counts of murder (other two Visualize's member, kills by Red John, member of the church in this time). Teresa explains but he refuses to accept it and begins to leave when Teresa reveals that she suspects him and ask him if he was in Elliston farm in 1988 when the two other murders occurred. However, he simply shrugs it off and walks away.
Red John suspect[]
In the episode Red John's Rules, Haffner is revealed to be in Jane's list of Red John suspects, and he returns in Season 6. He shook hands onscreen with Jane, and has been seen on Jane's List of Suspects.
He visits Lisbon in the hospital in Black-Winged Redbird after she is assaulted by Red John himself. Before his visit, Lisbon had a nightmare in which Haffner, Gale Bertram and Reede Smith were Red John and killed the entire CBI team.
He's shown to be a good whistler, when leaving Lisbon's room in the Hospital: it's important because Sophie Miller stated that Jay Roth (Red John) is an excellent whistler.
Haffner in The Red Tattoo
In The Red Tattoo, Haffner works with Lisbon's team to solve the case of the week, related to Visualize, much to the chagrin of the team members, who think that he should be investigated, not given a free reign. Haffner is hired by Jason Cooper.
In the same episode, he's shown to suffer from arachnophobia, the abnormal fear of spiders; Jay Roth also has a probable unknown phobia.
He also appears in Fire and Brimstone. He meets with Jane in an effort to get rid of the suspicion Jane and Lisbon have of him being Red John. When forced to show Jane his shoulder along with the other suspects, it is revealed that he does not have the three dots tattoo, that indicate the members of The Blake Association, that maybe, Red John is a part of.. Then, he remains and along with Jane and other suspects in proximity to a big explosion and where he is killed in The Great Red Dragon. Haffner, Bret Stiles and Thomas McAllister were presumed killed.
| TheMentalist | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Season | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | # |
| Four | - | G | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | 1 |
| Five | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | G | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | N/A | 1 | |
| Six | - | R | - | - | R | R | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | N/A | 3 | |
| Total | 5 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Trivia[]
- Probably was a former football player (like two of Red John's friends or accomplices: Todd Johnson and Craig O'Laughlin). He had an award in his office, lightly similar as the real "Heisman Trophy").
- He has arachnophobia, a fear of spiders.