Max Gufler was born on May 1, 1918, in Austria. At the age of nine, he suffered a severe head injury when struck by a rock, leading to unpredictable violent outbursts throughout his life. During World War II, he served as an ambulance driver for the Wehrmacht and sustained further head injuries from shrapnel. These traumas likely contributed to his later actions.

After the war, Gufler worked as a bookseller in St. Pölten. In 1951, he married the daughter of a tobacconist and began selling banned pornographic photos at his father-in-law's kiosk, leading to both their arrests. Following his release, he transitioned into a role as a vacuum cleaner salesman. During this period, he developed a scheme to defraud women by placing matrimonial advertisements, promising marriage, and then murdering them to steal their possessions.

Gufler’s killing spree began almost immediately after World War II, beginning in 1946 and lasting until his arrest in November 1958. His earliest known victim was Emilie Meystrzik, a prostitute whose skull was found broken in a love hotel in Vienna in 1952, shortly after Gufler’s release from custody over the kiosk incident. 

Over the years, he killed by spiking coffee with barbiturates, rendering victims unconscious, then drowning them in lakes or rivers to make deaths appear as suicides. He focused on middle-class women he met through matrimonial ads—earning him the nickname "Bluebeard."

The turning point came in September 1958, after the murder of Maria Robas. Investigators found strong evidence linking Gufler to her death—and forensic breakthroughs in toxicology—sparked a broader inquiry into other disappearances. On November 1, 1958, police arrested him in St. Pölten after discovering personal items belonging to several women in his possession and matching toxicology to barbiturate traces

t trial in April–May 1961, Gufler famously declared, “I would have confessed to 20,” though only four murders and two attempted murders were proven. He was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment in May 1961. He died in Stein Prison in Krems an der Donau on October 15, 1966.