The purpose of this paper is to describe the concept of criminal profiling and the application of the profiling methods to identify the perpetrator of homicide; to analyse the perpetrator’s characteristics based on the aspects of his/her behaviour, his/her motives, as well as on patterns he/she left behind. The paper presents both a review of the historical development of criminal investigation and the most important methods in criminal profiling, including criminal investigative analysis, investigation psychology, diagnostic evaluation, geographical profiling and behavioural evidence analysis. In addition, the goal of this paper is to investigate the relationship between the offender's personality traits and the characteristics of the homicide, which assists investigators in developing the offender's profile. Furthermore, this paper provides the most recent findings in the field of criminal profiling, i.e. it gives an insight into specific traits of criminal offenders, their characteristics, motives and behavioural patterns, which contributes to the process of criminal investigation by creating a profile of a potential homicide offender, so that he/she could be identified and referred to judicial authorities.