Rolf Kaestel turned 70 years old on Wednesday and is asking for clemency after serving 40 years behind bars.
Kaestel is currently serving a life sentence in prison for robbing a taco shop in Arkansas with a plastic water gun and has been behind bars since 1981. While robbing the restaurant Kaestel injured no one and took only $264.
In 2014 filmmaker Kelly Duda posted a video on YouTube of the cashier Kaestel robbed revealed his thoughts on the situation 34 years later.
“One day I found out, like 25 years later, that Rolf was still in prison,” Dennis Schlutterman said in the video. “I was pretty shocked about that and many nights I sat there and thought about it and thought about it and I couldn’t believe it that he was still there.”
Schlutterman would even go on to write Kaestel letters because he felt responsible for taking away his life. Now, he is working to help get Kaestel out of jail because to him and Kaestel it just doesn’t make sense.
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The Daily Beast wrote an extensive piece on Kaestel and his story and has found that keeping him locked up for stealing $264 is costing $20,000 a year.
“I have not been able to make any sense of it,” Kaestel told The Daily Beast, “not because it’s me or my case but because this kind of thing should not happen anywhere to anyone.”
The decision on Kaestels clemency application comes down to Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson. Kaestel is hoping that her response to his application this time will not be the same as it was in 2015 when he first applied and was denied, forcing him to wait four years to reapply.
Kaestel has not had any issues in prison, he has even worked as a paralegal, earned three associate’s degrees, and taught an astronomy class in his prison, according to The Daily Beast.