‘One of the most important stories:’ Long Prairie native shares his story of child sex abuse

ST. CLOUD (MN)
St. Cloud Times

June 2, 2020

By Nora G. Hertel

Long Prairie – Wind rustled through prairie grass, corn stalks and rust-colored oaks on William Dinkel’s hunting land on a sunny morning in October.

He woke at 5:30 a.m. to wait for deer in a cold tree.

The time that Dinkel — known as Billy — spends outside is sacred. It’s what he lives for.

And yet, around the corner from Billy’s 80 acres of paradise sit two farmsteads where he says he experienced such severe trauma as a child that he must reckon with it every day.

He’s 51 now. And the sexual abuse he says he endured in the late 1970s, between the ages of 8 and 13, still haunts him.

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