Why is the Utah prison system housing someone who robbed an Arkansas taco shop 33 years ago? [View all]

[NaturalHigh]

Invisible Man

Why is the Utah prison system housing someone who robbed an Arkansas taco shop 33 years ago?

For the past 15 years, Rolf Kaestel has sat behind bars in the Utah State Prison, invisible to those who put him there and a mystery of sorts to those who store him.

Ask if you can speak to Kaestel, and Utah officials say they have to ask the state of Arkansas for permission. Ask if Utah knows why they've been paying nearly $28,000 a year to keep him under lock and key, and they say they must consult the state of Arkansas.

And if you ask Arkansas why Kaestel, who is serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole for stealing $264 from a Bob's Taco Hut in Fort Smith, Ark., in 1981, why the man is in Utah, they'll say they can't quite recall.

Official records in Arkansas show that Kaestel, a 63-year-old with no living family members who hasn't had a single visitor since arriving in Utah in 1999, was transferred to the Beehive State under what's known as an "interstate compact" agreement because of "noncompliance with the Arkansas system." Explanations of what this means, and what Kaestel may have done to earn his noncompliance status, do not exist.


http://www.cityweekly.net/utah/invisible-man/Content?oid=2510963