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kill LIST

Sends a signal to a list of processes. The first element of the list must be the signal to send. Returns the number of processes successfully signaled.

$cnt = kill 1, $child1, $child2;
kill 9, @goners;

Unlike in the shell, in Perl if the SIGNAL is negative, it kills process groups instead of processes. (On System V, a negative PROCESS number will also kill process groups, but that's not portable.) That means you usually want to use positive not negative signals. You may also use a signal name in quotes. See "Signals" in perlipc for details.