Defense Rests in Hawaii Attempted Murder Trial—Final Witness Raises Last-Minute Doubt

The final witness in Gerhardt Konig’s attempted murder trial in Hawaii was Thomas Iinuma, a detective with the Honolulu Police Department who works in cybercrimes and digital forensics for the Criminal Investigation Division.

Iinuma testified as a prosecution witness last week, then Konig’s lawyer Thomas Otake called him as a defense witness today (Tuesday, April 7). The testimony was brief: Otake asked Iinuma about his analysis of Konig’s computer records and emphasized that he did not examine all records and that computers sometimes access files without human prompting. Konig, an anesthesiologist on Maui, is accused of trying to kill his wife, Arielle Konig, on the Pali Puka Trail on O’ahu in March 2025.

03:34 “And that being said, you cannot rule out with certainty that some of the last accesses you discussed last week, may have been caused by automated processes instead of a human, correct? You cannot rule that out with any degree of certainty?” “Yes, that’s correct. Based on the data I received, I cannot rule it out.”

04:05 cross-exam by Deputy Prosecutor Joel Garner

05:29 “Now, based on the fact that there are multiple different dates where all these different files, the financials, the divorce documents, where all these were accessed, what does that tell you about whether this was a virus scan or a person?”


06:38 “I noticed that all the decent the date and time that was accessed were all different. It’ll be a strong indication if all the access time were all within the same date, the same time, within milliseconds. If it shows that there was over 50 files that were accessed at the same second, then there’ll be a strong indicator that it was some kind of automated software that access all of them, and it’s humanly impossible to open up 50 files within a second.”

07:30 “Okay, so just based on the limited data that I received, it appears that it was likely a human action that caused it, because if the antivirus software went into that folder, it’s going to do a sweep of all the files within that folder. It’s not going to just individually, pick one file for that day, come back couple days later, look for another file and so on.”

08:15 Otake on redirect

08:50 Judge Paul B.K. Wong: “Does the defense wish to present any other evidence in this case?” “Your honor, at this time, the defense rests.”

09:04 “Mr. Garner, does the state wish to present any rebuttal evidence in this case?” “No, Your Honor.”