Hmmm...this is interesting. I changed my command from simply just the kill to kill -INT $vpnpid 2>&1 and now it seems to be working....

Got command prompt: [root@fc10-test perl]# Sending kill commands to ch
+ild processes:
kill -INT $vpnpid 2>&1
Starting EXPECT pattern matching...
 at /home/csit/usr/perl/lib/site_perl/5.10.1/Expect.pm line 561
        Expect::expect('Expect=GLOB(0x913e698)', 10, '-re', '.*') call
+ed at vpn_client.pl line 153
        main::sigInt('INT') called at vpn_client.pl line 97
        eval {...} called at vpn_client.pl line 97
Return from command:
Closing spawn id(4).
[download]

I have run it several times, and it seems to work now, but why I cannot tell...