‘Follow-Home Robbers’ Stir Fear in Posh Areas

Some well-heeled residents say they are shunning their prized luxury cars and converting garage door openers and car phones into crime-fighting tools in the hillside neighborhoods of the San Fernando Valley and the Westside that are the prime stalking ground of the “follow-home robbers.”

Plans for methods to deal with the robbers come up frequently in conversations with friends who own Mercedes-Benz cars--the most frequent common element in the robberies--said Sue Kaplan, a secretary at the Encino Chamber of Commerce.

“I got very nervous when I was followed into a real obscure cul de sac” last week, said Kaplan, who drives a new BMW. But she stopped and the other vehicle drove on. “I think the normal person is certainly aware of what’s out there and they’re going to keep their eyes open.”

Encino has been the area hardest hit by the robbers, who spot women driving expensive cars, follow them home and rob them. Police estimate that the robbers have netted nearly $300,000 in cash and jewels, and blame them for three shooting incidents in which three people were injured.

No suspects have been arrested.

Of the 31 robberies or attempted robberies since the series began in October, 22 have been in the Valley--12 in Encino and most of the others in the foothills between Sherman Oaks and Woodland Hills. Nine occurred in West Los Angeles.

“I know of a few husbands who have swapped vehicles with their wives and they are driving the Corvettes and the Mercedes and the wives are driving the rent-a-wrecks,” said Jack Feldman, past president of the Encino Chamber of Commerce. “It’s at best a difficult situation that has a lot of people on edge.”

Capt. John Higgins, commander of the Los Angeles Police Department’s West Valley division, urged drivers with car phones to use them to alert police if they suspect that they are being followed. “They could give us a running account . . . of exactly where they are,” he said.

A woman who lives near the Corinthian Drive residence in Encino where the female driver of a Mercedes-Benz was robbed Jan. 11 said she avoids driving her husband’s new BMW 525 and sticks to her 4-year-old BMW 325.

“I drive my own car . . . which is older, rather than attract attention to myself,” said the woman, who asked not to be identified.

She also wears less jewelry, said her husband, a Los Angeles attorney. Both of them have become adept at using the electric garage door opener, he said. “We don’t leave our car. We drive in, hit the button and shut it again.”

Even so, the woman said, she thinks she was followed home from a shopping trip to the upscale Gelson’s Market on Ventura Boulevard last week by a car carrying two men. She drove past her home and farther into the hills and eventually the men dropped off.

A Gelson’s spokesman said none of the incidents have started at the store but added that the store’s security personnel are aware of the robberies and are watching for anyone matching police descriptions of suspects.

Police say they know of no relationship between the robberies and driving from a particular location.

A Tarzana executive who drives a Mercedes 560 and whose wife drives a Mercedes 420 said they both were being very careful when returning home. “We are being very aware of vehicles parked on the street that we normally don’t see,” he said. “If that happens we’ll report the vehicle to the police.”

But Sandra Leiman of Encino, who drives a Mercedes, said she is unwilling to give in to the fears the robberies have generated.

“I just can’t live like that,” she said. “I don’t feel there’s anything you can do.”

Higgins said that rather than attempting to elude suspicious vehicles that appear to be following them, motorists should return to Ventura Boulevard and head for a police station or a telephone in a busy area.

He said a Tarzana man thought he had outdistanced a car that was following him last Sunday night but found himself confronted in his driveway by a man with a pistol. The motorist blew his car horn and the gunman ran away. Shots were fired at one woman who drove away after she spotted someone following her.

The robberies and robbery attempts had stopped for nearly a month, after police reports about the pattern followed by the robbers, but then resumed last weekend, when there were incidents in North Hollywood and Tarzana.

The latest robbery occurred Thursday on Benedict Canyon Drive south of Mulholland Drive.

In one of the shooting incidents, a 53-year-old man who drove his Mercedes-Benz from Beverly Hills to North Hollywood to visit his 80-year-old mother was shot twice after reaching the door of his mother’s home last Sunday. One bullet struck his mother in a finger, frightening the woman into a heart attack, police said. Both victims are recovering.