The wife of a Hawaii doctor took the stand in his attempted murder trial Tuesday, recounting a terrifying birthday hike that she said ended with him trying to inject her with a syringe and bashing her head with a rock.
Arielle Konig told an Oahu courtroom that the attack followed a cliffside couple’s selfie that she said her husband had asked her to pose for on March 24, 2025, on the Pali Puka Trail, northeast of Honolulu.
Dr. Gerhardt Konig, a Maui anesthesiologist, has pleaded not guilty to second-degree attempted murder.
His attorney has described the attack as self-defense, arguing in his opening statement last week that Gerhardt Konig struck his wife with a rock after he believed she tried to push him from the trail, according to NBC affiliate KHNL of Honolulu.
In her testimony Tuesday, Ariell Konig said she felt uneasy standing so close to the cliff’s edge and asked her husband to move so she could get by safely. Moments later, Arielle Konig said, Gerhardt Konig forcefully grabbed her by her arm and, uttering expletives, began pushing her back toward the cliff.
“Get back over there,” she recalled him saying.
Arielle Konig initially thought her husband was kidding, she testified, but she soon threw herself to the ground so she could grab hold of trees and shrubs.
Arielle Konig said her husband climbed on top of her. With a syringe in hand, she testified, he told her to hold still.
She batted the syringe away and tried to defend herself, she testified, screaming, biting his forearm and squeezing his testicles.
“He’s telling me, ‘Shut the f--- up,’” she recalled. “‘Nobody’s going to hear you out here. Nobody’s coming to save you.’ And I’m saying like, 'You can’t do this. Everyone knows we’re on a hike. They’ll know this wasn’t an accident, and our kids will be orphans.'”
He appeared to take a breath and calm down, she said, but then he began striking her face and head with a rock. She continued screaming, she recalled, and heard a woman say she was calling 911.
Gerhardt Konig “froze,” Arielle Konig testified, and she crawled away. She said she found the women who dialed authorities and they helped her down the trail.
In the 911 call, which was played in court last week, the hikers described seeing a man trying to kill a woman whose face was covered in blood, KHNL reported.
Arielle Konig said she suffered severe scalp lacerations. At one point, she showed the jury a large scar toward the front of her head.
She testified that the alleged attack came three months after her husband discovered that she’d been having an “emotional affair” with a co-worker. They’d gone to counseling, she said, and appeared to be making progress in rebuilding the trust that she said she’d broken.
