Doug Mulder, a legendary Dallas trial lawyer whose courtroom skills led him to have a hand in prosecuting and defending some of North Texas' most sensational criminal cases, died of a stroke Sunday. He was 79.

Mulder's courtroom talents were first noticed by former Dallas District Attorney Henry Wade, who hired Mulder out of Southern Methodist University law school in 1964. Mulder was hired months after Wade finished the successful prosecution of Jack Ruby for murdering accused presidential assassin Lee Harvey Oswald. Mulder quickly rose up the ranks from a misdemeanor prosecutor to the No. 2 in the office.

“He was made first assistant when he was 32 years old,” said Toby Shook, a Dallas criminal defense attorney who shared law office space with Mulder. “Wade has a stable of very good trial attorneys and he promoted Doug over them, that's how talented he was.''

“He's one of those legendary trial lawyers that had that confidence and ability to take total command of a courtroom,” Shook said. “He was a brilliant cross-examiner. Doug would dissect witnesses like a surgeon. He had a relentless approach in his preparation and he would overwhelm his opponents.''

Mulder was eventually handed some of Dallas' biggest criminal cases.

In 1973, Mulder and Wade convinced a Dallas jury to sentence two brothers to 5,005 years in prison for kidnapping Mandy Mayhew Dealey, then daughter-in-law of Joe Dealey, president of The Dallas Morning News at the time.

Later that same year, Mulder notched a murder conviction with malice against Darrell Cain, a Dallas police officer who shot 12-year-old Santos Rodriguez while he was interrogating the boy for theft. Cain was sentenced to five years in prison in a case that inflamed tensions within the city's Mexican-American population.

“It was quite an accomplishment in 1973 when it happened,” Shook said. “Because back then, most police officers didn't get indicted and they certainly didn't go to prison.''

Mulder also tried 20 capital murder cases and won the death sentence in all of them. The most notorious was Randall Dale Adams, a young drifter sentenced to death in the killing a Dallas police officer in 1976, a conviction that was overturned in 1989. Adams said he was wrongfully convicted and his story was turned into Errol Morris' noted 1988 documentary “The Thin Blue Line”—a film that helped prompt Texas courts to free Adams, along with the help of Houston criminal defense attorney Randy Schaffer.

In 1981, Mulder left the DA's office after he was approached to represent Bobby Joe Manziel, a wealthy Tyler oilman charged with capital murder in the death of a local grocer. Manziel, the great uncle of Heisman trophy winning quarterback Johnny Manziel, offered to double Mulder's salary to take the case. Mulder ultimately convinced prosecutors they couldn't win a conviction, and the charges were dropped.

Mulder's most famous case was his defense of Walker Railey, a prominent Dallas pastor who was accused of attempting to choke his wife to death. Railey's 1993 acquittal in a state district court in San Antonio came despite a mountain of circumstantial evidence offered by prosecutors, including a note the minister wrote complaining of a “demon inside my soul.”

“He was a legend, really and truly,” said Dan Hagood, a Dallas criminal defense attorney who knew Mulder. “The word gets misused a lot. But the likelihood of another Doug Mulder coming around in my lifetime is not possible.''

Mulder's greatest joy was practicing law with his children—first his daughter Michelle, who has since retired, and later with his son Chris.

In 1999, Mulder and his son defended a burglar convicted for stealing over $1 million in jewelry from the home of the late Harold Simmons, a Dallas billionaire. While the burglar was exposed to a life sentence, the Mulders convinced a jury to sentence him to 10 years of probation.

“Doug told me that Chris was smarter than him and was much calmer in trial. Doug just liked to eviscerate witnesses on the stand,'' Shook said.

In 2009, Chris Mulder shared some fatherly advice he learned from his dad in an article in Texas Lawyer.

“He told me before I was a lawyer and even now: 'I believe I am smarter than 90 percent of the lawyers out there, but the other 10 percent you just have to outwork' and 'be nice to everybody because you don't know who's going to be a judge next year,' ” Mulder said of his father.

Funeral services for Mulder are pending.