Why doesn't kill work?

[James McKenzie]

Jesus M. Rodriguez wrote:
> Try kill -9 <pid>  sometimes kill doesn't work.  When in doubt -9 it :)
> Works everytime.  CTRL+Z simply puts it into the background.

I try in order:

kill <pid>
kill -2 <pid>
kill -15 <pid>
kill -9 <pid>

However this would not kill a DEFUNCT process.  Anyone got an idea on 
how to do this?
-- 
James McKenzie
With assistance, Now running 2.6.11rc3, Software Suspend 2
and ibm-acpi .1
Need a home for my .rpm