Background
Killian, Robert Kenneth was born on September 15, 1919 in Hartford, Connecticut, United States. Son of Edward F. and Annie (Nemser) Killian.
Killian, Robert Kenneth was born on September 15, 1919 in Hartford, Connecticut, United States. Son of Edward F. and Annie (Nemser) Killian.
Bachelor, Union College, 1942. Bachelor of Laws, University Connecticut, 1948. Doctor of Laws, Sacred Heart University, Bridgeport, Connecticut, 1976.
Doctor of Laws, Union College, Schenectady, 1978.
He served as a first lieutenant in the United States Army for four years during World World War II, commanding an infantry company. He received his Bachelor of Laws from Hartford Law School on 1948. He served as the city of Hartford"s assistant corporation counsel from 1951 to 1954.
He became chairman of the Hartford Democratic Town Committee in 1963 and is credited with helping to get elected Hartford"s first African American councilman and state Senator.
In 1974, Killian was elected the 81st Lieutenant Governor of Connecticut on the ticket headed by Governor Ella Grasso. Displeased with the way the governor was handling issues including the state"s fiscal crisis as her re-election approached, Killian waged a bitter primary campaign against Grasso in 1978.
He lost and was replaced on the ticket by William A. O"Neill, who later succeeded Grasso as governor in 1980 after her resignation shortly before her death from cancer. Killian then spent a decade as chairman of the Hartford Civic Center and Coliseum Commission.
He died in Hartford in 2005, aged 85, and is interred at Mount Saint Benedict Cemetery in Bloomfield, Connecticut.
Follett later killed himself.
As Connecticut Attorney General, Killian"s office defended a 1970 decision by Connecticut"s Commissioner of Motor Vehicles, John Tynan, to deny a drivers license to a man, David East. Follett, on the basis that he was "an admitted homosexual".
Trustee National Jewish Hospital and Research Center, Denver. Served with infantry Army of the United States, 1942-1946. Member American, Connecticut, Hartford County bar associations Clubs: Kansas City, Elks.
Married Evelyn Farnan, December 7, 1942. Children– Robert Kenneth, Cynthia Elaine.