A Hawaii jury found Dr. Gerhardt Konig guilty of attempted manslaughter on Wednesday after several hours of deliberations over two days in his Honolulu trial. Konig had been charged with second-degree attempted murder in a case that centered on allegations he attacked his wife near a cliff on Oahu.
The verdict came after three weeks of testimony that put both Konig and Arielle Konig before jurors in one of Honolulu’s most closely watched trials. Sentencing is set for Aug. 13.
Jurors rejected the murder charge but agreed Konig was guilty of attempted manslaughter based upon extreme mental or emotional disturbance. Prosecutors had alleged that on March 24, 2025, he pushed Arielle Konig near the edge of the Pali Puka Trail and then beat her multiple times with a rock. The defense said Arielle Konig attacked first and that he used the rock in self-defense.
Arielle Konig testified that the two had traveled from Maui to Oahu to celebrate her birthday and that they were trying to repair their marriage after she said he found what she described as flirty WhatsApp messages in Dec. 2024. She said the encounter turned violent on the trail, with her husband pushing her toward the cliff edge and producing a syringe and vial. She told jurors he beat her with a rock as many as 10 times, and she was heard shouting, “Please help, he’s trying to kill me,” before saying “he froze.”
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Konig gave a different account. He testified that he struck Arielle Konig with the rock twice, denied having any syringes and denied trying to pull her toward the edge. He also told the court he felt suicidal after the incident, saying he “just felt hopeless at that point in terms of everything” and later described feeling horrified about what he had done and hopeless about the relationship.
Prosecutor Joel Garner said Arielle Konig’s account was backed by bloody evidence at the scene, the severity of her injuries, digital evidence and the testimony of other witnesses. He called her testimony “straightforward” and “coherent,” a sharp contrast with the self-defense claim the jury ultimately did not accept.
The verdict leaves Konig facing sentencing in a case that exposed a private marital breakup in public and turned into a high-profile trial in Honolulu. The jury had been instructed to consider attempted manslaughter and several assault charges if it did not find him guilty of second-degree attempted murder, and that is where the gerhardt konig verdict landed: guilty on the lesser charge, with the next major step now set for Aug. 13.
