Dixon History: The kidnapping of Della Stackhouse, Part 2

On Dec. 15 in Part 1, we told the story of the 1946 kidnapping of 40-year-old Della Stackhouse, the mother of three and wife of a prominent Dixon doctor. The minute the city heard the news that Della had been taken, men spilled out of the Friday night Dixon High School basketball game, and a sheriff’s posse of 50 to 100 local men began a nighttime search.

Later that same night, on the third Friday of December, kidnapper Frank Sickles gave himself up.

After being taken to the city jail, a mob estimated at several hundred gathered at the jail until dispersed by the police chief.

Here, in Part 2, we tell the rest of the story.

National news

The harrowing story of the kidnapping of Della Stackhouse was front-page news across the country. The Telegraph coverage was extraordinary and exhaustive, and staff was flooded with calls and requests for coverage and photos.

Della’s story appeared in scores of newspapers, from the Boston Globe to the Miami Herald to the Sacramento Bee and even north to Saskatchewan, Canada. Newspapers continued their coverage through the court case and sentencing of Sickles.

Fessing up

While in jail, Sickles not only admitted to the details of his crime, but he also confessed to raping a woman a few months earlier in Decatur. That offense was accomplished in the same way that he trapped Della Stackhouse – by posing as a newspaper reporter and binding and gagging the victim.

Sickles also admitted that he thought about raping Della but gave up on the idea when she resisted.

Sickles revealed that just before the kidnapping, he decided to become a bandit and “pick up a lot of soft money.”

He chose the Stackhouse family because he assumed that a doctor would have plenty of money for the ransom.

Background checks revealed that Sickles had lived in Dixon as a foster child and attended North Central and South Central schools.

Later, after moving away, he served two terms in Vandalia for robbery and was dishonorably discharged from the Army after spending time in a military prison and going AWOL.

Judge George Dixon

Police arrested Sickles on Friday, Dec. 20, 1946, the same day of the kidnapping. His sentencing came only a month later, on Jan. 25, 1947, when his case was presented before Judge George C. Dixon, a former mayor and direct descendant of Dixon’s founder.

Judge Dixon sentenced Sickles on one count of kidnapping for ransom, two counts of confining Della’s daughters, and another count of stealing $17 from Della’s purse. Such crimes, in total, could have received as little as seven years in prison. But the judge thought otherwise.

In pronouncing the sentence, Judge Dixon cited the unusually large number of criminal indictments in Lee County in the previous two years, noting that the county needed to aggressively discourage crimes of violence.

Further, he said, his sentence was based on the principle that “a man’s home is his castle,” and Lee County homes must be protected.

Frank Sickles sentenced

Judge Dixon said that he would have sentenced Sickles to be executed by electrocution. However, since Della Stackhouse had asked that his life be spared, Dixon sentenced Sickles to 150 years in prison.

In addition, the judge specified that during Sickles’ first 11 years of imprisonment he must spend the third Friday of each month in solitary confinement. After the 11th year, he must spend every Dec. 20 in solitary confinement as a reminder of what he had done.

The 27-year-old Sickles would not have the possibility of parole until he reached the age of 97.

What happened to the Stackhouses?

You might think that Della, traumatized by the horrific ordeal, would want to move her family away from Dixon as soon as possible. But the Stackhouse family, who had lived here since 1932, remained in Dixon for another 14 years.

Dr. Stackhouse was elected to the Dixon school board in 1949. Della bore another son, Jamie, around 1952. Daughter Linda married Kennard Bowers of Grand Detour in 1957. In the late 1950s, Dr. Stackhouse was elected as school board president before resigning from the board in 1959.

In 1960, Stirling and Della Stackhouse moved the family to Rome, New York.

Linda and Kennard soon followed to the same town. Daughter Diana found her husband there, and she married William Ruane in 1965.

Frank Sickles, born in 1919, is surely dead by now, but I couldn’t find a time or place of his passing. Although he would have been eligible for parole at age 97, it seems unlikely that he lived that long.

Dr. Stackhouse died in 1979 at age 76, in Rome, New York. Della Stackhouse remained in Rome until the close of her life in 2003.

Her age at death?

97.

A Dixon native, Tom Wadsworth is a writer, speaker and occasional historian. He holds a Ph.D. in New Testament.