Art Dealer Followed Home, Fatally Shot : Crime: He was the victim of an apparent robbery attempt in the latest of 13 similar cases involving drivers of expensive cars who were tailed to their residences.

A Granada Hills art dealer died Thursday after he was followed home and shot in an apparent robbery attempt, the latest of 13 crimes in which victims were tailed to their residences in the northern San Fernando Valley, Los Angeles police said.

Police said they are investigating whether the incidents were carried out by the same people.

In all cases, residents of well-to-do suburbs near the Simi Valley Freeway, driving expensive cars, were followed home and held up as they emerged from their vehicles, police said. Three similar cases were also reported in Van Nuys.

None of the victims were harmed, however, until Fritz Herbert (Bert) Waninger, a self-employed art dealer, was shot once in the apparent robbery attempt about 11:30 p.m. Wednesday at his house in the 12100 block of Elnora Place near Signature Drive, police said.

Waninger was pronounced dead about 6:30 a.m. Thursday at Holy Cross Medical Center where he underwent surgery, Police Lt. Kyle Jackson said.

“He was returning home from a business meeting,” Jackson said. “When he exited his vehicle, he was confronted by a suspect in his driveway and shot.”

“We heard the gunshot, ran outside and found him bleeding in the driveway,” said a neighbor. “He told us what happened. We just couldn’t believe it. “

Although apparently nothing was stolen from Waninger, who lived alone, Detective Wayne Newton said the killing appeared to have been a robbery attempt that went awry.

“We’re not 100% sure he wasn’t robbed,” Newton said, but “it doesn’t appear that he is missing” any property.

Newton said the robber must have followed Waninger home and shot him when he resisted, then fled. It was unclear whether the assailant had accomplices, he said.

Newton said police believe the killing is linked to a dozen other robberies since December in Granada Hills, Porter Ranch and Northridge.

“I’ve had 12 robberies in the past three months that are very similar in nature and that appear to have been committed by the same suspects or group of suspects,” said Newton, who works in the Devonshire Division.

There also have been three follow-home robberies in the Van Nuys Division since December, said Lt. Harvie Eubank of that division.

The slaying and the recent robberies are similar, officers said, to a series of follow-home robberies in the Valley and Westside in 1988-89. A ring had been robbing motorists in luxury cars as they returned home to Beverly Hills, Sherman Oaks or Encino.

Times staff writer Leslie Berger contributed to this story.