Trades Hall bombing in 1984: Ernie's killer has never been found

With a blast like an "almighty cannon", a car and a dog were flung across Vivian St.

Inside the building, caretaker Ernie Abbott was killed while, on the street, his dog Patches was burnt but alive.

To this day, no one has been arrested for the Trades Hall bombing in Wellington 29 years ago.

Despite tantalising clues - a banana sticker on the bomb, and talk of a suspected killer who was already on the run from the IRA - the case remains open. Even the motive for the bombing, on March 27, 1984, remains a mystery.

Early suspicions that the union building was targeted because of a bus strike the day before, were ruled out because building a bomb in that timeframe would have been a massive task.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/capital-life/8489688/Trades-Hall-bombing-tragedy-still-an-unsolved-mystery