A week after a former University of Pittsburgh professor and University of Pittsburgh Medical Center anesthesiologist allegedly attacked his wife along a scenic overlook during a trip to Oahu, interviews and court records paint a harrowing picture of an apparently rocky marriage that became violent during a weekend getaway.

Gerhardt Konig's alleged attempt to push his wife, Arielle, from one of Hawaii's massive cliffs — police say he pummeled her with a rock after he couldn't push her over the edge — has captured international attention, and those who know the couple expressed bewilderment at the attempted murder charge against the 46-year-old doctor.

"It's hard to fathom," housekeeper and friend Christina Ferguson told Hawaii News Now. "It's hard to grasp the severity of this tragic incident. I just can't."

The incident occurred last Monday morning along the Pali Puka Trail. Police described an attack that left Konig in serious but stable condition with head injuries and lacerations. Witnesses said they saw a man later identified as Dr. Konig beating a woman with a rock, and Konig herself told police her husband struck her about 10 times.

Dr. Konig remained jailed on a charge of second-degree attempted murder. His bail was set at $5 million, and a preliminary hearing was scheduled for Monday.

His wife, a nuclear engineer who spent more than a decade at Westinghouse in Pittsburgh before the couple moved to Hawaii, told the story in her own words in an application for a restraining order against her husband Thursday.

She indicated the marriage had become strained in recent months and, since then, her husband had become prone to "extreme jealousy" and "has attempted to control and monitor all of my communications."

The trip to Oahu was supposed to be a weekend getaway for her birthday, one that her husband planned, according to the court filing. They arrived on the island from their home in Maui on March 23, she wrote. Their children stayed at home with family.

The next day, she wrote, her husband suggested that they hike a trail near the Nu'uanu Pali Lookout.

"Pali" means "cliffs" in Hawaiian, and this particular lookout rises some 1,200 feet as part of the Ko'olau mountain range. The draw, according to the Division of State Parks, is an unobstructed view of the island's eastern coastline.

Konig, in her court filing, noted the topography of the trail: "narrow ridge sections with steep drop-offs on both sides." She said she became uneasy and told her husband she didn't want to go any farther.

She told police that her husband then wanted a selfie at the edge of the cliff but she was uncomfortable and moved away. She said that was when her husband tried to push her.

"He was yelling something to the effect of, 'Get back over there, I'm so (expletive) sick of you,' and continued to push me," she wrote.

She thought he was joking at first, then "quickly realized he was seriously trying to make me fall off the cliff."

Konig wrote that she threw herself onto the ground away from the edge, at which point her husband climbed on top of her. She said told him to think of their children. At one point, she said, Dr. Konig grabbed his bag and pulled out a syringe and vial and tried to inject her.

"I do not know what was in the syringe, but Gerhardt is an anesthesiologist and has access to several potentially lethal medications as part of his employment," she wrote in the court filing.

Ultimately, the doctor grabbed a rock and began to pound her head. Konig told police that he also grabbed her hair and smashed her face into the ground.

Two women farther down the trail intervened, telling police that they heard a woman screaming for help. One of the women told police she ran ahead and saw a man hitting a woman in the head with a rock.

"He is trying to kill me," the women recalled Konig saying.

They shouted that they were calling 911, and the man fled, police wrote. The women then helped Konig down the trail.

Police put out an all-points bulletin for Dr. Konig and shut down the area around the lookout and trails during a multi-hour manhunt. He was found and taken into custody about 6 p.m., police said.

In the interim, Konig said she learned that Dr. Konig had called one of his adult children via FaceTime. He was allegedly covered in blood and said, "I just tried to kill Ari but she got away," according to Konig's filing. Konig wrote that she is afraid for herself, her children, and the rest of her family if her husband is released on bail.

The couple married in 2018, according to court records, and they have two young children together. Dr. Konig has grown children from a previous marriage that ended in 2016.

"She was so warm and welcoming," Gina Perriolo, a friend of Konig's in Pittsburgh, told Hawaii News Now. "Thinking about her kids and what they're going to be faced with . . . I'm just so sad that this happened."

Ferguson, the couple's housekeeper, told KHON that Konig is soft-spoken and generous — "the kind of person I would like to be."

"When you walk into their home, you felt the happiness, you felt the love in the atmosphere," she said. "It's just shocking."

UPMC officials said Dr. Konig hasn't been employed by UPMC in more than two years. Most recently, he worked as an anesthesiologist on Maui, according to the Hawaii Star Advertiser.

In a statement last week, Maui Health said: "Dr. Konig is employed by an independent entity contracted to provide medical services at various medical facilities on Maui, including Maui Memorial Medical Center. Dr. Konig's medical staff privileges at Maui Memorial Medical Center have been suspended pending investigation."

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(Staff writer Stephana Ocneanu contributed to this report.)

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