Hawaii Anesthesiologist’s Wife Testifies He Tried to Kill Her on Oahu Cliff Hike

In a Hawaii courtroom on Tuesday, nuclear engineer Arielle Konig testified that her husband, anesthesiologist Gerhardt Konig, tried to kill her exactly one year earlier by forcing her toward a cliff edge on Oahu’s Pali Puka trail, attempting to stab her with a syringe, and then repeatedly striking her head with a rock. She told jurors he shouted, “You’re done…we don’t need you anymore” as he allegedly attacked during what was supposed to be a birthday hike, and a nurse hiker, Sarah Bucksbom, described finding Arielle with her face and head covered in blood before calling 911. Konig, a former University of Pittsburgh Medical Center anesthesiologist now working with Anesthesia Medical Group in Hawaii, is charged with second-degree attempted murder and faces up to life in prison if convicted. Prosecutors say a phone call he made afterward to his 19‑year‑old son — in which they argue he said, “I tried to kill Arielle, but she got away” — was a confession, while the defense claims Arielle was having an affair, struck him first with a rock, and that the call was a suicidal goodbye. The case has drawn attention both for its alleged premeditation in a remote, dangerous setting and for how sharply the spouses’ accounts diverge, underscoring the challenges jurors face in reconstructing domestic violence incidents that unfold out of public view.