'MY HUSBAND IS TRYING TO KILL ME'

A MAUI PHYSICIAN IS CHARGED WITH ATTEMPTED MURDER AFTER ALLEGEDLY TRYING TO PUSH HIS WIFE OFF A CLIFF AND SAVAGELY BEATING HER WITH A ROCK

- JOHNNY DODD, CHRISTINE PELISEK

Even by Hawaiian standards, the scenic trail at Oahu’s Nu‘uanu Pali Lookout—where more than 400 warriors were forced to jump to their deaths from the 1,200-ft. cliff during a battle in 1795—is hauntingly beautiful. On March 24 the tranquility of the gurgling streams and bamboo forest was interrupted when a pair of hikers heard someone screaming, “Help! Help me!”

Concerned that another hiker was about to fall off the side of the mountain, the duo told police they sprinted up the trail to the overlook to find a woman lying on her back with a man on top of her, violently bashing her in the head with a rock. “He is trying to kill me,” the woman shouted when she saw the hikers, who called 911. By the time officers from the Honolulu Police Department and paramedics arrived and rushed the bloodied young woman to Queen's Medical Center, the man with the rock had fled into the forest. Before long, police were piecing together the disturbing details of what Hawaiian prosecutors now say unfolded after 46-year-old anesthesiologist Gerhardt Konig attempted “to push [Arielle Konig, his 36-year-old wife] off a cliff” when she refused to take a selfie with him at the edge of the towering overlook.

Arielle’s refusal, according to police reports, sent the father of four—who was arrested six hours later after a manhunt and is now being held without bail—into a murderous rage. “Domestic abuse cannot be tolerated,” Honolulu County prosecutor Steve Alm said in a March 28 statement after a grand jury indicted Gerhardt on charges of second-degree attempted murder. (Gerhardt has pleaded not guilty.) His arrest left those who know the doctor, described by one friend as a “nice, normal, down-to-earth guy,” in a state of confusion. “It doesn’t make any sense,” says a physician who met Gerhardt when they attended the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. “It makes me wonder if psychologically something was going on—none of this sounds like the person I knew.”