HONOLULU (CN) - A jury convicted Gerhardt Konig Wednesday of attempted manslaughter over an attack on his wife along a cliff-edge trail on the Hawaiian island of Oahu.

Konig, 47, a former anesthesiologist at Maui Memorial Hospital, had pleaded not guilty to charges of second-degree attempted murder. He was convicted on a lesser charge carrying a maximum sentence of 20 years. Oahu First Circuit Court Judge Paul Wong set a sentencing date for Aug. 13.

The trouble began in early December 2024, when Gerhardt Konig logged into his wife's WhatsApp account and discovered she had been exchanging frequent personal messages with a married co-worker, Jeffrey Miller.

His wife Arielle Konig, a nuclear engineer who works remotely for TerraPower, a Washington state energy company, testified the relationship never turned physical, though the couple agreed to call what happened an emotional affair.

The husband and wife listened to an audiobook together called "How to Help Your Spouse Heal from Your Affair." They entered individual and couples therapy. She was apologetic, she said, and committed to saving the marriage.

By February, things seemed to be turning a corner. The couple took a family vacation with their two young sons and relatives. In March, Arielle Konig said, both of them were trying and had committed to giving their marriage two years.

When her husband asked what she wanted to do for her birthday, she mentioned she had always wanted to visit Oahu. He booked the trip.

On the morning of her birthday, March 24, 2025, he gave her a necklace and a card. She read it aloud in court on the one-year anniversary of the attack.

"Happy Birthday, Angel Face. There isn't an obstacle in this world too hard for me to fight through for you," she read tearfully. "You're the heart of our family, and that heart is strong. You're a terrific mom. The kids and I hit the jackpot with you. Love always, G."

The two sides disagree about what happened next.

Arielle Konig testified that on the Pali Puka trail, a rugged footpath above the Nu'uanu Pali Lookout, her husband grabbed her by the upper arms and pushed her toward the edge of the ridge. She threw herself to the ground, clutching roots and shrubs. He straddled her, she said, produced a syringe and covered her mouth when she screamed.

"Nobody's going to hear you out here," she quoted him as saying. "Nobody's coming to save you."

He then picked up a rock and began striking her in the head, his wife told the court. 

"I just started screaming. Because in my mind he was trying to knock me unconscious so he could drag me over the edge," she said.

But Gerhardt Konig testified that an argument started when Arielle told him she wanted to resume traveling for work with Miller. He said they separated on the trail; when he came back down, she was still there. They took a selfie together, he said, and then she shoved him from behind.

"I felt, like, a shove, and I was almost pushed over the edge," he said.

He said he turned to find her already 5-10 feet away; he believed the push had been intentional. She pulled him to the ground, wrapped a leg around him and grabbed him by the testicles, he said. 

She picked up the rock and struck him first, getting him "kind of good," before he wrestled it away and hit her in self-defense.

During cross-examination, prosecutors asked whether it was cheaper to kill his wife than to divorce her. Gerhardt Konig said it was not.

Two nurses who were hiking nearby testified they heard screaming and rushed toward the sound, finding Arielle Konig covered in blood and crawling on her hands and knees.

"She screamed, 'Help, he's trying to kill me. Call 911,'" one of the nurses, Sara Buchsbaum, testified. 

She said she held eye contact with Gerhardt Konig for about 30 seconds afterward.

 "A cold, motionless stare," she said. "I felt very uneasy."

He turned and walked back up the trail, they testified. The two nurses helped Arielle Konig to her feet and guided her down to the trailhead.

The prosecution's most powerful witness may have been Gerhardt's son from his first marriage. Emile Konig, 19, said his father called him on FaceTime shortly after the incident.

"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," Emile Konig testified.

When he asked about splatters on his father's shirt, Emile Konig said his father told him it was her blood. 

On a second call, Emile testified, his father said he was going to jump off a cliff, saying he needed to hang up so police would not find him.

Gerhardt Konig disputed all of it. He acknowledged the word "kill" may have come up during the call, but said it was not what it sounded like.

"I think I was saying to myself, 'she said I tried to kill her,'" he told the jury.

Almost eight hours later, officers spotted Gerhardt Konig emerging from the forest near the lookout just before sunset. He ran before officers arrested him on the road leading back from the trailhead.

He has no prior criminal record.

Arielle Konig was discharged from Queen's Medical Center in Honolulu the following morning and testified her recovery took about two to three months.

She filed for divorce in May 2025 and is seeking custody of the couple's two young sons, the family home and financial damages.

Source: Courthouse News Service