The only problem I had with your code was the sleep delay was too long. :) The script was executing over tens of thousands of files so in the end I used the implementation below.

sub executeTimed{
    my $cmd = shift;
    $|++;

    my @results :shared;
    my $pid :shared;
    async {
        $pid = open my $fh, "$cmd |" or die "$!, $^E";
        @results = <$fh>;
    }->detach;

    select(undef, undef, undef, 0.08);  
    my $test = kill (0, $pid);

    if($test){
        kill (3, $pid); 
        push(@results, "Function timed out.");
    }    
    return pop(@results);
}
[download]

Thanks again for all replies.
I was looking to use default active state perl package and was unsure if ipc-run would execute.

Nemo