sendmail processes hanging around after I switch to mod_perl

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Hi All

I'm running apache 1.3.14 mod_perl 1.23 on red hat linux 6.2 kernel 2.2.17
sendmail 8.9.3-20

After switching to mod_perl from plain cgi scripts I find that sendmail processes are hanging around after http requests are supposed to have served.  many of my scripts heavily make use of chunks of perl codes like 
  
 open S,'|/usr/sbin/sendmail -t -oi' or die $!;
   ..
   ..
 close S or die $!;
  
 With plain cgi scripts I ran sendmail in daemon mode; it was configured NOT to listen i.e. it only sends mail NOT receive.  After switching to mod_perl many sendmail processes hang around after the requests are supposed to have served.  So I decided to kill the daemon.  But I'm still
 getting these processes hanging around.  Any idea?  I would think that once
 	close S
 statement is reached perl would release any attachment to sendmail and thus from that point on whether I use mod_perl or plain cgi scripts would not matter.
  
 Thanks