A Maui doctor has been charged with second-degree attempted murder after he allegedly tried to kill his wife by pushing her off a hiking trail and hitting her multiple times on the head with a rock, according to Honolulu police.
Bail for the accused, Gerhardt Konig, 46, was set at US$5 million. A preliminary hearing in the is scheduled for next week.
The alleged assault took place after Konig wanted to take a selfie while he was on the Pali Puka Trail in Honolulu with his wife, Arielle Konig, on March 24.
The trailhead is a short drive from downtown Honolulu and traverses a ridge with ocean and mountain views.
“She mentioned that while on the trail, Gerhardt was standing close to the edge and asked her to take a selfie with him,” said a Honolulu police declaration, viewed by ABC News. (Global News has not independently reviewed the documents.)
Konig’s wife allegedly told him she didn’t feel comfortable taking a picture with him that close to the edge of the cliff and began to walk back.
According to the police declaration, Konig yelled at his wife to come back and, when she refused to return, he pushed her into bushes where they began to struggle.
His wife managed to get away, but Konig then picked up a rock and hit her on the head about 10 times “while also grabbing the back of her hair and smashing her face into the ground,” the document stated.
The 36-year-old woman crawled over to two hikers who heard her yelling, “Help! Help me!” and they called 911 to report the incident.
One witness said she ran to the top of the trail and saw the victim lying on her back with a man on top of her, hitting her on the head. She said that the man stopped attacking the woman once he saw her, according to ABC News.
Arielle told police that she saw “Gerhardt take out two syringes from his bag and attempt to use them on her, but she was able to get away from him.”
The woman sustained multiple large lacerations to her face and head and was taken to a hospital in serious but stable condition.
Konig, an anesthesiologist at Maui Health, allegedly fled the scene. A police search for the man lasted hours after they closed the state park. Officers arrested him on Monday at around 6 p.m. following a brief foot chase.
Maui Health, which is an affiliate of Kaiser Permanente, released a statement saying that Konig works for “an independent entity contracted to provide medical services at various medical facilities on Maui.”
Kaiser Permanente said it has suspended his credentials and his ability to treat patients, pending investigation.
Christina Ferguson, a friend of Arielle Konig, has set up a GoFundMe page to financially help the woman following the incident.
“I’ve grown close to her and her ohana as her little ones are close to my grandchildren’s ages,” Ferguson wrote on the fundraiser page. “This is devastating. No one ever thought this would happen, let alone to such a wonderful person.”
Ferguson said that all the funds raised will go directly to “Arielle for her and her children.”
The GoFundMe post has currently raised over $2,000 of its goal of $15,000 from 21 donations as of Friday afternoon.
Konig made his initial court appearance on March 27 and did not enter a plea. His preliminary hearing is set for March 31.
— With files from The Associated Press