In the world of true crime, we talk a lot about masking. The face a person presents to the world

versus the face they wear behind closed doors. And few cases illustrate that duality more starkly

than the story of Gerhardt and Ariel Koenig. It's a story of a doctor and nuclear engineer

with a beautiful home in Maui, a blended family, and a life that really looked from every

angle like an absolute dream. And then, on a closed, dangerous cliff trail on the island of

Oahu, on Ariel's birthday, everything came apart.

Hey guys, and welcome to the Moms and Mysteries podcast, a true crime podcast featuring myself, Mandy, and my dear friend Melissa. Hi, Melissa. Hi, Mandy. How are you? I am doing well. I am making my way through the month of April, which is my busy month. I have my husband's birthday coming up this coming up weekend.

And yeah, it's just flying by. This whole year is, but April has been flying by for sure.

It is. I do need the summer to fly by because I'm already too hot. But besides that, it could

slow down a little. For no one asking, I finally have a clock update in my kitchen. So how long has it been

like five, six weeks? I was going to say over a month for sure. A hundred percent. No one's

changed it. But my parents are coming today. So I changed it because I was like, I can't go in here

like with my mom and be like, no, I'm I'm proving a point here, which actually she would totally understand. so I don't know why I changed it. But at this point, I was like, this has gone on too far. Everyone's just adapted to this. And this is crazy. So we are on regular time now. Very happy to do that. And I'm going to be frying some homemade french fries in a little while, so I've got lots of good stuff

going on over here. Oh, wow. Wow. I love that homemade french fries. You know, I actually was going to

be asking you for a suggestion. I know you're a homemade baker, maker, maker of all kinds of stuff.

And as I was saying, my husband's birthday is this weekend coming up.

And he has some intolerances. And I wanted to make him a dessert, but it can't be any nuts or any

dairy. And I was like, I know the right person to ask. I'm good. I can help you. Sure, I got you. I'll

send you a list. Perfect. Yes. I am not much of a dessert person myself. So I always, I'm so boring. I can't even, I can't even think of dessert ideas. That's like, that's where I'm at in life. Yeah. Publix does have some good, some vegan stuff that is helpful because we have to go get that for my son. And Whole Foods actually has some stuff that's not terrible. But I think

homemade in that case is actually way better. I should just go buy something. Let's be

okay. Well, now you have the option. Perfect. All right. So let's get into this story. Melissa, this is one

that you had found for us to talk about this week. And it is truly such a wild story.

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