DALLAS -- Dallas police are continuing to hunt for specifics to tell them why an angry former client wounded a father and son inside their North Dallas financial services company Monday before turning the gun on himself.

The father, Richard Smith, 66, and his 39-year-old son, Christopher, were both in stable condition at Parkland Memorial Hospital late Monday. Richard Smith was shot four times in his legs, and a bullet went through Christopher Smith's neck and out his mouth.

The gunman, who police identified as Robert Randall Mustard, 60, of Dallas, was in the intensive care unit late Monday at Baylor University Medical Center.

State records show that Mustard, a Southern Methodist law school graduate and a former Dallas assistant city attorney, received his attorney's license in 1979 but later was disbarred. He was arrested in 1986 for allegedly trying to bribe a Dallas warrant officer and marshal for access codes to a city computer so he could dismiss his client's traffic tickets.

In the early 1990s, Mustard briefly worked as a copy desk intern for The Dallas Morning News and also was employed by the Denton Record-Chronicle. Both newspapers are owned by A.H. Belo Corp.

He also spent time working for the University of Texas at Arlington campus newspaper, The Shorthorn. It was unclear Monday whether Mustard is currently employed, but relatives said that he sometimes volunteered to read to the blind.

Monday's shootings took place about 10:30 a.m. inside the Smith Financial Group. According to Joyce Parish, the mother of Richard Smith's live-in girlfriend, the gunman walked into the company's third-floor suite and shot Christopher Smith at close range. Then he shot Richard Smith as he came out of his office after hearing the shots.

Richard Smith fell to the ground, Parish said. The gunman demanded that he stand.

"Richard said, 'I cannot,'" said Parish, who said she got her information about the shooting from her daughter.

"Then crawl to your chair," the gunman ordered. He did, and the man shot Richard Smith two more times in the leg.

Meanwhile, Christopher Smith escaped from the office and hurried to the building's lobby. Blood covered his face and ran from his mouth, said Becky Hayes, who works on the first floor.

"He kept telling me: 'Stop the bleeding, stop the bleeding,'" Hayes said. "He was very worried that he would die from the blood."

Another person in the lobby, Robin Wynne, said that Christopher looked dazed and in shock.

"He said he thought his dad had been killed," Wynne said.

About that time, several police officers arrived at the building. They responded after an initial call to 911 ended when the caller abruptly hung up, said Dallas police spokesman Kevin Janse. A short time later, the police got a report that shots had been fired and went to the building's third floor.

When they got there, the gunman "was still walking around looking for the two victims," Janse said.

As the officers neared Suite 310, they heard a gunshot, which apparently was the gunman shooting himself. But the high-rise office building remained locked down for several hours because police were not sure of the size of the crime scene, Janse said.

Both Richard and Christopher Smith are expected to recover, Parish said.

"You never think it's going to hit your family this close," she said. "They are so fortunate. They could both be dead."

Janse said the gunman was unhappy with the father-and-son financial advisers, who help wealthy people manage their money.

"This individual knew his victims. He was apparently disgruntled with them or had problems with them," Janse said.

Parish said that Richard Smith had been trying for some time -- apparently unsuccessfully -- to reach Mustard to tell him that his account's funds were low.

Mustard's sister-in-law, Mary Mustard, said in a telephone interview late Monday from her Central Texas home that the family had not spoken to Robert Mustard in months.

"We tried to stay in contact with him but he wasn't responsive to our attempts," said Mary Mustard, who is married to Robert Mustard's younger brother, Eric. "I think he may have been out of work."

State business records show that Richard Smith started Smith Financial Group in 1999. Several years later, he added his only child, Christopher, to the staff. They live several doors from each another in a row of large brick homes in Far North Dallas, less than two miles from their office.

(Staff writer Tanya Eiserer contributed to this report.)

___

Read more: http://dailyme.com/story/2010030800004417/police-search-motive-north-dallas-office.html#ixzz0hh44YGbW