... a thread must return for it to stop ( other than killing it)..... it seems you enqueue 'Stop', but maybe work on a better, more direct way?

 while (my $message = $event->dequeue ) {
        print "IN HERE\n";
        return 1 if $message eq 'STOP';
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... maybe $event->dequeue is hanging? ..... maybe experiment there with a counter and see how many times it prints STOP and figure out why it dosn't return ?

... maybe try a time delay to give the eventloop enough loop time to get it all done?

$self->{queue}->enqueue('STOP');
    
# insert a small Wx time delay here, or use a conditional in the join 
+like:
do 1 until $self->{worker}->join;

#or code to wait for the thread count to change       
}
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in other words find the best Wx way to wait there for the thread to return