HONOLULU (Court TV) — The woman who says her husband attacked her and tried to murder her along a scenic hiking trail in Hawaii took the stand on Tuesday to recount the cliffside incident.
Gerhardt Konig stands in court on March 24, 2026. (Court TV)
Gerhardt Konig has pleaded not guilty to a charge of second-degree attempted murder for the alleged assault on his wife, Arielle Konig, at the Pali Lookout on March 24, 2025.
The couple had traveled to Oahu from their home on Maui to celebrate Arielle Konig’s birthday, she testified. The trip came after what she described as a troubled time in their marriage. “I felt hopeful that this was a turning point for us in our marriage, and that this was going to be a nice trip that kind of started the next chapter for us,” she said in court.
Arielle Konig testified that the couple’s marriage had become strained after she had what she termed an “emotional affair” with a married coworker who lives in Washington state. While the two never spent time together in person, they would exchange flirtatious messages on WhatsApp, even using the code word “HELEU” to signal whenever Gerhardt Konig was nearby.
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After finding the messages, Gerhardt Konig had been “really angry, very upset,” Arielle Konig testified. She said that her husband called her a “lying b—” and a “whore” before agreeing to go to counseling. “I was apologetic,” she said. “He was obviously hurt and I was really committed to my marriage and my husband, so we agreed to work through it and try to rebuild, because I had definitely broken his trust and could tell he was hurt.” In the wake of the affair, Arielle Konig said that her husband would check her emails and messages daily.
Arielle Konig shows the jury a scar beneath her hair while testifying. (Court TV)
The morning of the alleged attack, the couple woke up at their hotel and had breakfast before heading out. Gerhardt Konig presented his wife with a birthday gift of a necklace as well as a card. Arielle Konig became emotional when her husband’s defense team asked her to read the card out loud, which referred to her as “Angel Face.”
Arielle Konig said that while they were on the hike, she began to feel uncomfortable. “There’s kind of these cliff faces that you walk past, and it’s pretty narrow, and I was just feeling uneasy. I wasn’t enjoying myself,” she testified. “I told Gerhardt, ‘I’m not having fun, I don’t want to keep going. I’m gonna stop here.'”
She testified that when the couple made their way down the path, her husband proposed taking a selfie. Standing approximately 10 feet from the cliff’s edge, Arielle Konig described noticing the defendant’s behavior as odd. “He was very aware of where I was, where my feet were, where he was and where the trail was. I felt like he was often looking at my feet and just very spatially aware of where I was on the trail.”
Suddenly, Arielle Konig said, Gerhardt Konig attacked. “He grabbed me, really forcefully my upper arms, and he said, ‘I’m so sick of this s—, get back over there.’ He starts pushing me back towards the cliff,” she said. “I was surprised. It felt almost like he was kidding at first, and I was like, ‘What are you doing?'”
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Arielle Konig testified she quickly realized this was no joke and threw herself onto the ground. She said the two began to wrestle until Gerhardt Konig was on top of her with a syringe in his hand. She said she was able to bat the syringe away, as Gerhardt Konig continued to say to her, “Shut the f— up. Nobody’s going to hear you out here. Nobody’s coming to save you.”
A photo shows Gerhardt Konig at the Pali Lookout moments before the alleged attack. (Court TV)
As they wrestled, Arielle Konig said, she alternately screamed for help and tried to reason with her husband, saying, “Everyone knows we’re on a hike, they’ll know this wasn’t an accident and our kids will be orphans. You’ll go to jail and be dead. You have to stop.” She described fighting back by biting him, scratching him and squeezing her husband’s testicles.
Then, she said, Gerhardt Konig appeared to calm for a second. “So I had this moment where I was like, OK, this is the break, I can get out,” Arielle Konig testified. “And then he just starts hitting me with a rock.”
Arielle Konig estimated she was hit with the rock approximately 10 times before two eyewitnesses came to her rescue.
Under cross-examination, Arielle Konig conceded that she suffered no facial or skull fractures during the alleged attack. She described her injuries as severe lacerations that required stitches. She also admitted to withdrawing $123,000 from the couple’s joint bank account, saying she used the money to pay bills.
Arielle Konig testified that she has filed for divorce; those proceedings are expected to continue after the conclusion of Gerhardt Konig’s criminal trial.
