Unkillable process with firefox

[Harry Putnam <reader@newsguy.com>]

I have a situation I had not seen before where when I try to start
firefox I'm told its already running.

ps wwaux reveals:
(all on one line - wrapped for mail)

  reader    2617  2.1  6.9 804920 143440 pts/8   Ds+  Oct18  \
  31:58 /usr/bin/firefox http://forums.winamp.com/login.php?a\
  =pwd&u=141665&i=7a4f7ceb7d50ee8a95868beb02620c8b53802eae

So some kind of evil process firefox is involved in.

as root:

# kill -KILL 2617

But again `ps wwaux' reveals the same line.

How does one go about kill a process that even root cannot kill with a
signal 9?