Homicide represents one of the most serious crimes that a person can commit to his species, and at the same time one of the most terrible crimes of violence in criminology, the consequence of which is always death of another person. This thesis deals in more detail with the topic of appearances (phenomenology) and causes (etiology) of murder, as well as the normative framework and incrimination of murder in the contemporary criminal law legislation of the Republic of Croatia. In order to better understand the criminological empirical reality of murders, thesis first defines the main characteristics of the criminal offense of murder, aggravated murder and manslaughter, determines the distinction between completed murders and those that remained only attempted, and discusses in more detail how the perpetrators are punished. Since it is possible to commit homicide only and exclusively with the intention of causing the death of another, different types of intentions are described, and also the way in which the court concludes about it. For the very qualification of the act as murder and punishing it’s perpetrator, it is not enough only that the perpetrator deliberately caused the death of another person as a result of his action, thereby realizing the essence of homicide from article 110. KZRH, but it will also be necessary that such an action is illegal and perpetrator found guilty, so these elements of the formal concept of a criminal offense will be discussed in the further part of a thesis. In addition to the letter of the law, a thesis provides detailed answers to the questions whether, in what forms, and in what way (attempted and completed) homicides occur in the Republic of Croatia and the Balkans, what are the phenomenological characteristics of the incident itself, the perpetrator and the victim of (lethal) violence, and what punishments are most often imposed on the perpetrators. Driven by the well-known stereotypes and prejudices that follow the Balkan countries, as a sui generis area, which is still deeply behind in past war events and the practice of blood revenge, where live "patriarchal, violent and wild barbarians who drink šljivovica and arrange things their way- with weapons and violence" based on the available statistical data and the results of the latest "Balkan Homicide study", I investigated whether such stereotypes are really in line with the criminological empirical reality of this part of Europe, along the way comparing homicide rates and total crime rates with the rest of Europe and the world. In this thesis, I deal specifically with issues of the relationship between the victim and the perpetrator, and the profile of the murderer in the Republic of Croatia and in general in the Balkans, and also on the discussion of certain factors that most often act as risk factors and contribute to the commission of such (lethal) violence. Although homicide is a terrible crime that “leaves a body behind” and extinguishes another person's life forever, human nature is innately curious about the answer to the question of why this is so, why a person becomes a murderer. Accordingly, I deal with various endogenous, exogenous and mixed etiological theories which are trying to find the cause of the mentioned mystery and phenomenon that continues to intrigue us to this day, even though an absolute and unequivocal answer to the mentioned question has not been found yet.