Honolulu (AP) — A Hawaii anesthesiologist who was accused of trying to murder his wife on a cliffside hike last year has been convicted of the lesser charge of attempted manslaughter.

A Honolulu jury returned the verdict against Gerhardt Konig, 47, on Wednesday after a day of deliberations. The crime he was convicted of, attempted manslaughter based on extreme mental or emotional disturbance, carries up to 20 years in prison. Sentencing was set for Aug. 13.

Thomas Otake, his attorney, said he planned to appeal. Nevertheless, Otake said the defense respected the jury’s verdict.

“We are thankful that they did not convict him of attempted murder, which would have been life in prison,” Otake said. “We look forward to an appeal related to some of the judge’s rulings throughout the case.”

Distraught over her relationship with a coworker, Konig planned to kill his wife, Arielle Konig, during a weekend trip to Honolulu for her birthday in March 2025, prosecutors said. They said he tried to push her off a cliff and stab her with a syringe, and when that didn’t work, he struck her with a rock. The attack was interrupted by two hikers who heard her cries for help.

The defendant testified that it was his wife who first hit him with a rock, and he hit her back in self-defense.

Under Hawaii law, if jurors find that someone committed the elements of murder or attempted murder, they then consider whether the defendant acted in self defense or under the influence of extreme mental or emotional disturbance. If they find that the defendant was influenced by such mental or emotional disturbance, and that there was a reasonable explanation for the disturbance, the charge is reduced to attempted manslaughter.

Konig stood as the jury’s foreperson announced the verdict, then closed his eyes and lowered his face. His parents declined to comment to reporters afterward. Arielle Konig was not in court.

The defense’s arguments

During closing arguments, the doctor’s lawyer repeatedly sought to cast doubt on Arielle Konig’s account.

If Gerhardt Konig had wanted to kill his wife and had access to a syringe in a remote area, attorney Thomas Otake suggested to jurors during closing arguments, wouldn’t he have drugged her and then thrown her from the cliff, rather than having started a scuffle before attempting to fill the syringe as he was wrestling with her?

“You would use the syringe first,” Otake said. “It makes no sense.”

The trial started last month, nearly a year after Gerhardt and Arielle Konig went on a hike on the Pali Puka trail in Honolulu that ended with her bloodied and screaming that he had tried to kill her.

Their two young sons stayed home on Maui while the Konigs were on the trip.

Gerhardt and Arielle Konig testify

The trial, with testimony livestreamed by Court TV, has aired the couple’s marital problems leading up to the hike, along with their versions of what happened on the trail.

Gerhardt Konig testified that his wife was having an affair, which he confirmed by unlocking her phone while she slept. The relationship, which Arielle Konig characterized as an “emotional affair” involving flirty messages with a coworker, came up during the hike.

Arielle Konig testified that her husband grabbed her and moved her toward the cliff’s edge, but she threw herself on the ground in an attempt to hold on. He straddled her and had a syringe in his hand, she said, but she batted it away. She bit his forearm and squeezed his testicles in an attempt to get him off her, she said.