A Hawaii doctor who had been charged withtrying to kill his wife on a birthday hikein 2025 was convicted on Wednesday, April 8, of attempted manslaughter based upon extreme mental or emotional disturbance.
Following a three-week trial, a Honolulu County juryreturned the verdictagainst Gerhardt Konig, 47, after about a day of deliberations. The jury did not convict Konig on the higher charge of second-degree attempted murder.
The attempted manslaughter charge carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. Konig's sentencing is scheduled for Aug. 13. Thomas Otake, Konig's attorney, said he planned to appeal.
Konig wasarrested in March 2025after theHonolulu Police Departmentsaid he attempted to push his wife, Arielle Konig, off a cliffside hiking trail in Oahu and struck her in the head with a rock. At the time, police said Arielle Konig was taken to the hospital in critical condition.
Gerhardt Konig, an anesthesiologist based in Maui, was nowhere to be found when authorities responded to the scene, but he was arrested after an hours-long manhunt. He had pleaded not guilty to second-degree attempted murder following his arrest and indictment last year.
Husband and wife give conflicting accounts
During the trial, the jury heard testimony aboutan emotional affair, a marriage on the rocksand two very different accounts of a hellish birthday hike.
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Prosecutors accused Gerhardt Konig of trying to kill his wife by attempting to inject her with a mysterious syringe and shove her off a cliff. When that attempt failed, prosecutors and Arielle Konig said he started hitting her with a rock. No syringe was found at the scene.
Two other hikers had partly witnessed the assault and corroborated Arielle Konig's account of what happened during the beating. The assault had left Arielle Konig covered in blood and suffering from bruising, a complex laceration of the scalp, and a fractured thumb, according to photos shown andtestimony heard during the trial.
"I just started screaming, because in my mind he’s trying to knock me unconscious to be able to drag me over the edge. I was just screaming then as much as I could," she testified.
Emile Konig, Gerhardt Konig's son, alsotestifiedduring the trial that his father called him on FaceTime after the attack occurred and confessed while splattered with her blood. Emile Konig said his father told him "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."
But Gerhardt Konig denied that he plotted to kill his wife or that he confessed to the crime.He testifiedthat he had been attacked first and acted in self-defense, saying his wife pulled him to the ground, grabbed him by the testicles, and hit him in the face with a rock.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY:Doctor found guilty of trying to kill his wife during hike in Hawaii