By Mary Meaux and Chelsea Henderson
The News staff writers

A Dallas-area father is dead, and his daughter is charged with murder after a fatal shooting at Seagull Motel in Port Arthur early Saturday morning.

Brad Burnett, Justice of the Peace for Precinct 7, said 59-year-old Stephen Haylock was found lying on his back with one gunshot wound to the chest from “a small firearm, a Derringer” around 5:16 a.m. Saturday.

Haylock’s daughter, 30-year-old Valerie Haylock, was still inside the room of the Seagull Motel, 6828 Gulfway Drive, when police arrived. Valerie was taken into custody without incident and arrested for murder.

The Haylocks were in town from The Colony — a suburb of Dallas — and checked into the motel around 2 a.m. Saturday. Burnett said other residents staying in the Seagull Motel said Valerie told them she and her father were in town to visit a grandmother.

Burnett said Stephen Haylock’s body, or the room he was found in, “didn’t show any sign of struggle.”

Witnesses said shortly after they heard the gunshot, Valerie ran out of the room partly clad screaming, “I shot him,” PAPD Maj. Raymond Clark said Saturday morning.

“The police are still tracking down some leads and trying to notify some other family of the death,” Burnett said.

Valerie was arrested at the motel and taken to the Port Arthur Police Department.

Burnett said he ordered an autopsy for Stephen Haylock, whose body was taken to the Southeast Texas Forensic Center on U.S. 69 Saturday afternoon.

The shooting death marks the first murder in Port Arthur this year.