The Hawaii engineer whose husband is accused of trying to throw her off a cliff alleges he had been sexually abusing her for months prior to the attack.
Gerhardt Konig, 46, allegedly attacked his wife, 36-year-old Arielle Konig, during a trip to the Pali Lookout in Oahu, Hawaii, last week, per police.
Arielle survived after her husband allegedly tried to push her off a hiking trail at the 1,200 ft high spot, bashed her face into the ground, hit her head with a rock 10 times and then tried to inject her with a syringe, according to Honolulu police and an arrest affidavit reviewed by PEOPLE.
Gerhardt, who briefly fled the scene, was arrested and charged with attempted murder later the same day.
In a restraining order petition filed after the attack, Arielle alleged Gerhardt had been sexually abusing her for months in the lead up to the incident.
While Arielle did not explicitly provide a time frame for when the alleged sexual abuse and assault occurred, she noted in the same petition a significant update in the couple’s lives in December.
She claimed Gerhardt accused her of having an affair and he had “extreme jealousy,” she said.
“Since then, he has attempted to control and monitor all my communications,” she alleged in the petition, adding that the couple had been going to individual and couples therapy.
Arielle alleged Gerhardt became enraged after he asked to take a photo with her on an edge that she says she was “uncomfortable” with, per both the affidavit and petition. Gerhardt seemingly got angry and allegedly began to push her “back towards the cliff edge,” Arielle claimed in the petition for a restraining order.
He screamed at her, commenting along the lines of: “Go back over there, I’m so f—ing sick of you,” she alleged. She initially thought her husband was joking.
“I quickly realized he was seriously trying to make me fall off the cliff,” she wrote in the petition.
She managed to flee after a few unsuccessful attempts at escaping his clutches, per her account.
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Gerhardt has been charged with attempted murder of Arielle and is being held on a $5 million bond, per online court records.
The records did not indicate a plea information as of publication time; neither Gerhardt’s nor Arielle’s lawyers immediately respond to PEOPLE’s requests for comments.
If you are experiencing domestic violence, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233, or go to thehotline.org. All calls are toll-free and confidential. The hotline is available 24/7 in more than 170 languages.
If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, please contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673) or go to rainn.org.
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