A York father is facing a felony charge after his 2-year-old daughter was found wandering alone toward a busy intersection while a backyard gathering full of adults nearby failed to notice she was missing. Dallas Christopher Masenheimer, 33, was charged with felony endangering the welfare of a child following the incident, which happened on the 500 block of North George Street.
According to fox43.com, the incident began around 6:23 p.m. on Saturday, when a Children and Youth Services caseworker noticed a large group gathered in a backyard on the block. Around the same time, a woman spotted the 2-year-old girl moving toward a busy intersection at Parkway Boulevard and picked her up before contacting authorities. The woman later reported to police that the child had nearly been struck several times by passing vehicles.
Officers responded to the scene and began knocking on doors in the area, and a child at the gathering identified the missing girl by name, which led police to Masenheimer. York City Police charged Masenheimer, determining he was the child's sole guardian and that the girl had been in his care. Northern York County Regional Police Department officers also responded to the scene, according to the same fox43.com report.
Conflicting Accounts and an Irate Response
Per the criminal complaint, Masenheimer gave conflicting reports about his actions before the child's disappearance. He told investigators he believed the child was asleep inside the home, and he admitted he had been drinking. Police described Masenheimer as irate for most of the encounter, and the report notes that the adults gathered at the scene were smoking and drinking and were described by police as uninterested in helping.
Masenheimer never asked whether the child was okay or whether he could see her, per the criminal complaint. He reportedly yelled at police during the encounter and said he would not take responsibility for fixing the back gate of his yard, which was found broken — a detail investigators say may have allowed the toddler to leave the property unnoticed.
The Felony Threshold Under Pennsylvania Law
Masenheimer's charge stems from Pennsylvania's child endangerment statute, 18 Pa.C.S. § 4304, which makes it a crime for a parent, guardian, or supervising adult to knowingly endanger a child's physical, mental, or emotional well-being by violating a duty of care. Under the same statute, the offense is elevated from a first-degree misdemeanor to a third-degree felony when prosecutors can show a course of conduct or a substantial risk of death or serious bodily injury, according to Worgul, Sarna & Ness. A third-degree felony conviction under that statute carries a potential sentence of up to seven years in prison and a fine of up to $15,000.
The intersection where the toddler was found, North George Street at Parkway Boulevard, is designated by PennDOT as Pennsylvania Route 181, a corridor that connects directly to the boundary between the City of York and North York Borough. The agency had previously completed a $1.2 million project along that stretch to upgrade traffic signal controllers, pedestrian countdown signals, and reflectorized backplates — safety infrastructure that underscores how heavily trafficked the area is.
Agencies Respond, Case Moves Forward
Officers contacted Children and Youth Services as part of the response, tying into Pennsylvania's broader child welfare system. The state operates a county-administered structure in which initial reports of suspected neglect or abuse are funneled through the statewide ChildLine hotline before being assigned to local agencies such as the York County Office of Children, Youth and Families, per the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services. Statewide, county child welfare agencies investigated 41,070 Child Protective Services reports and 176,496 General Protective Services referrals in 2024 alone, illustrating the heavy caseloads such caseworkers routinely manage during emergency field responses.
Masenheimer was arraigned Sunday morning and posted $25,000 bail through a bondsman, and he is currently free while the case proceeds. He has a preliminary hearing scheduled for September 11. It remains an open question whether York County Children, Youth and Families will pursue formal protective custody measures or whether additional charges could follow related to the broken gate or the conduct of other adults at the gathering.
The 500 block of North George Street has seen its share of emergency calls over the years, including a 2013 kitchen fire that displaced a family of nine and a May 2021 daytime shootout that led to an aggravated assault charge, according to a report from fox43.com. Masenheimer's case adds to a string of recent York County child endangerment prosecutions Hoodline has tracked, including a drunk flip crash case in July.
