Thanks Your Mother! 
kill 9, -$pid;   # didn't work

# But...
kill -9, $pid    # WORKS !!!

[download]

From perldoc on kill:
if SIGNAL is negative, it kills process groups instead of processes. That means you usually want to use positive not negative signals.

In reply to Re^2: open (to read) and kill a pipe to a pipe by darist
in thread open (to read) and kill a pipe to a pipe by Anonymous Monk

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