Arielle Konig thought her husband, a former UPMC anesthesiologist who used to live in Mt. Lebanon, was joking at first when he threatened her after the troubled couple snapped a selfie while strolling down a Hawaiian hiking trail last year.
Then, she testified Tuesday in an Oahu courtroom, Gerhardt Konig said — and kept repeating — two words: “You’re done.”
“He’s saying, like, ‘You’re done. We’re done with you. We don’t need you anymore. You’re done. You’re done,’ ” Arielle Konig, who was celebrating her 36th birthday at the time of the attack, said on the witness stand.
“I walked up to him, he grabbed me really forcibly by my upper arms and he said, ‘I’m so (expletive) sick of this (expletive), get back over there,’ ” she added.
“And he starts pushing me back towards the cliff.”
Konig was unsuccessful.
On Tuesday, as the second week of Gerhardt Konig’s attempted murder trial unfolded in Hawaii, the former UPMC anesthesiologist, unshaven and wearing a light-blue dress shirt, listened as Arielle described in detail how her then-husband allegedly tried to kill her.
Authorities arrested Gerhardt Konig, 47, last March after they said he repeatedly struck his wife in the head with a rock, tried to inject her with a syringe, and struggled to push her off a cliff.
“Nobody’s going to hear you out here,” Konig said, according to Arielle’s testimony, which was broadcast on Court TV. “Nobody’s coming to save you.”
‘He was very aware of where I was’
In March 2025, the couple went on a weekend vacation, leaving their two children with family and a nanny. They traveled from their Maui home to a hotel on Oahu, a neighboring island in Hawaii.
Konig suggested the two hike to the Nu’uanu Pali Lookout, a scenic overview surrounded by steep cliffs.
As the couple descended, returning to the start of the trail, Konig asked to take a photo with his wife near the edge of a cliff, she said.
Arielle became dizzy — and said she refused.
“He was very aware of where I was, where my feet were, where he was and where the trail was,” she testified earlier this week. “I feel like he was often looking at my feet and just very spatially aware of where I was on the trail.”
After taking the photo, Arielle said, she walked about 10 feet away from the cliff’s edge. Her back faced the edge of a steep drop-off.
That’s when Gerhardt’s behavior and tone turned hostile, she said.
‘Nobody’s coming to save you’
Gerhardt grabbed his wife forcefully by her upper arms and began to push her back to the edge of the cliff, she said.
“I was surprised,” Arielle testified. “It felt almost like he was kidding at first. I was like, ‘What are you doing?’ ”
Arielle said she threw herself on the ground and reached for tree roots — all while screaming and wrestling to free herself from her husband’s grip.
Gerhardt straddled her and wielded a syringe, which he grabbed from his backpack, she said.
She swatted it out of his hand and bit his right forearm. He pulled what appeared to be a vial from his backpack, she said.
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Arielle testified that she tried to reason with her husband.
“I’m saying, ‘You can’t do this. 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 I’ll be dead,’ ” she said.
“You’re done,” he replied, according to Arielle’s testimony. “We don’t need you anymore.”
Arielle said she tried to remind her husband about their children and family, including the birthday text Arielle had received from his mom.
Gerhardt responded by picking up a rock and bashing it into her head, she said.
As she cried for help, a woman nearby replied: “We’re here. We’re calling 911.”
Gerhardt froze, she said, and slowly backed away from her. She then crawled toward the voices. A group of women helped her down the trail, where Arielle, her head covered in blood, was treated by first responders.
Arielle said her husband fled, later calling his adult son from his first marriage.
“I just tried to kill Ari but she got away,” he told his son, according to court documents.
Police capped an hours-long manhunt by chasing Konig into a grassy area. A struggle ensued. Officers then arrested him.
The couple married on Sept. 4, 2018, at their million-dollar home on Roycroft Avenue in Mt. Lebanon. Konig had been married before.
Around three years ago, the Konigs moved from Pennsylvania to Hawaii, where Konig worked for Anesthesia Medical Group and Maui Memorial Medical Center.
Leading up to the attack, things had soured between the pair.
Arielle wrote in a restraining-order petition that her husband accused her of having an affair, leading to “extreme jealousy.”
“Since then,” she wrote, “he has attempted to control and monitor all of my communications.”
The couple had been seeing therapists, both individually and as a couple, after their marriage started to sour.
Konig suggested the weekend getaway on Oahu to celebrate his wife’s 36th birthday.
Arielle — who studied nuclear engineering at Penn State University and earned a Master of Business Administration from the University of Pittsburgh — filed for divorce in May, two months after the attack.
The trial is slated to continue Friday, court records show.
TribLive staff writer Justin Vellucci contributed to this report.