Jury deliberating in Hawaii trial of doctor accused of trying to kill wife during hike

The jury is deliberating in the trial of a Hawaii doctor accused of trying to kill his wife on a hiking trail.

Dr. Gerhardt Konig, 47, has pleaded not guilty to second-degree attempted murder. Prosecutors allege the anesthesiologist attacked his wife, Arielle Konig, near a cliff while on the Pali Puka Trail on Oahu on March 24, 2025, by pushing her near the edge and then beating her multiple times with a rock.

The defense, meanwhile, has alleged that Arielle Konig attacked her husband first, and that he hit her with the rock in self-defense.

Both Gerhardt Konig and his wife testified during the three-week trial in Honolulu, presenting these widely differing accounts of what happened on the hike.

Prosecutor Joel Garner told jurors in his closing argument that the evidence proves beyond a reasonable doubt that Gerhardt Konig intended to kill his wife that day on the challenging, narrow and steep Pali Puka Trail by pushing her off the cliff.

“One push is all it would take on this trail,” Garner said. “One push, and it’s a tragic accident.”

When that alleged plan didn’t work, Garner argued that the defendant then tried to inject her with a syringe before ultimately attacking her with a rock.

“The defendant swung this rock so hard that pieces of rock broke off into Arielle’s scalp,” Garner said.

The prosecutor alleged that Gerhardt Konig came up with the plan to avoid a costly divorce.

Garner said Arielle Konig’s “straightforward” and “coherent” testimony was corroborated by the bloody evidence at the scene, the “severity” of her injuries, digital evidence and the testimony of other witnesses — including two women who came upon the couple in the midst of the alleged attack.

“The only thing that got him to stop was being caught red-handed,” Garner said.

Garner argued that Gerhardt Konig’s testimony, meanwhile, was “unbelievable” and “filled with contradictions,” and that the defendant’s account of his wife attacking him with the rock “doesn’t make sense.”

The prosecutor juxtaposed photographs of Gerhardt Konig’s bruised face with Arielle Konig’s bloodied one that were taken in the wake of the incident.

“The idea that these injuries were caused by the same rock — completely unbelievable,” Garner said.

Garner also pushed back against Gerhardt Konig’s testimony that he only hit his wife two times, citing the extent of her injuries.

“He hit her again and again and again and again, and he only told you two times,” Garner said.

During his closing argument, defense attorney Thomas Otake said there is “reasonable doubt all over this case,” referring to it as “he said, she said.”

“They’re undeterred by the evidence,” Otake said of the prosecutors. “It doesn’t matter what it shows, they’re going to spin it in their favor. They came up with a theory and they went to search for facts to support it.”

He argued there was no plan for the defendant to kill his wife and reread the birthday card that Gerhardt Konig wrote to his wife for her birthday the day of the hike — in which he wrote in part, “You’re the heart of our family.”

“You don’t write a letter like this if you’re planning to kill somebody two hours later,” Otake said.

He disputed the alleged plan outlined by the prosecutor.

“Why in the world, if you bring a syringe to incapacitate someone to make it easier to throw them off the cliff, why would the syringe be Plan B? It would be Plan A,” Otake said.

He also questioned why Arielle Konig’s testimony was largely unemotional, save for when she read the birthday card from her husband, and argued that her testimony was “not reliable.”

“You cannot get emotional over a made-up story that didn’t happen when you started the fight,” Otake said.

If the jurors are unable to find Gerhardt Konig guilty of second-degree attempted murder, they will consider whether he is guilty of attempted manslaughter based upon extreme mental or emotional disturbance, first-degree attempted assault, second-degree assault or third-degree assault.

While on the stand during the trial, Arielle Konig testified that the two had traveled to Oahu from their home in Maui to celebrate her birthday. She said they had been working on repairing their marriage after her husband found what she characterized as “flirty” WhatsApp messages between her and a colleague in December 2024 in what she said was an “emotional affair.”

Arielle Konig testified that during the hike, her husband pushed her toward the edge of the cliff. As they wrestled on the ground with him on top, pinning her down, he produced a syringe and vial, she said.

She further testified that her husband proceeded to beat her with a rock as many as 10 times, and that she believed he was trying to knock her unconscious in order to drag her over the edge of the cliff. 

Arielle Konig testified that she fought back by biting her husband’s forearm and pleaded with him, saying, “You can’t do it,” and that “our kids will be orphans — you’ll go to jail and I’ll be dead.” 

“He’s saying, ‘You’re done. We’re done with you. We don’t need you anymore. You’re done. You’re done,'” she told the court.

Arielle Konig testified that she yelled, “He’s trying to kill me,” and screamed for help, and two female hikers happened upon them. One of the hikers told a 911 operator, “Someone’s currently being attacked on the top of Pali Puka. There’s a man trying to kill her,” according to audio of the call played in court.

Prosecutors showed photos of Arielle Konig’s bloodied face following the incident. She testified that she crawled away from her husband and was helped down the rest of the trail by the two women. She said she was treated at a hospital for “severe complex scalp lacerations” and showed the court scarring on her scalp. 

Gerhardt Konig testified in his own defense over two days, maintaining that he never intended to hurt his wife and acted in self-defense when he struck her with the rock.

He told the court that his wife pushed him near the edge after they got into an argument about her affair, and that she hit him with a rock first while they struggled on the ground. He admitted to hitting her with the rock while on top of her, saying he struck her twice, though he denied having any syringes or trying to pull her toward the cliff’s edge.

Gerhardt Konig testified that he felt suicidal after the incident.

“I just felt hopeless at that point in terms of everything,” he said. “I felt horrified about what I did to her, that I had caused this to her, that I had resorted to violence against my wife, the person who I love the most in the world. And I just kind of felt hopeless in terms of our relationship, too.”

Shortly after the incident, Gerhardt Konig testified, he made a FaceTime call to his 20-year-old son from his prior marriage, Emile Konig, to say goodbye.

His son testified about the FaceTime call during the trial. Asked by the prosecutor to recount what his father said during the call, Emile Konig responded, “That he would not be making it back to Maui and to take good care of the younger kids, and that Ari, my stepmom, had been cheating on him, and that he tried to kill her.” 

“During that call, the next plan that he said was to jump off the cliff,” Emile Konig testified, adding that his father said he was “at the end of his rope.” 

Gerhardt Konig pushed back against his son’s testimony and denied making any confession. He told the court that what he said during the call was, “She said I tried to kill her.”

Gerhardt Konig was arrested following an hourslong manhunt, prosecutors said.

Arielle Konig filed for divorce in May 2025, seeking full custody of the couple’s two young children.  

Gerhardt Konig, who worked as an anesthesiologist on Maui, has been in jail since his arrest. Following his arrest, Maui Health said his medical staff privileges at Maui Memorial Medical Center have been suspended pending investigation.