Setting the input record separator to "//\n" is a pretty good way to do what you want, but you don't need to muck around changing it in the while loop. In this case "split" is your friend, as in:

while (<INPUT>) {
   my @lines = split "\n";
   # and boom, @lines has each line in your record
   # ready for your parsing pleasure.
....
}
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Gary Blackburn
Trained Killer