How about this one: vim-cmd vmsvc/getallvms
Take the Vmid and run: vim-cmd vmsvc/power.off [Vmid]
[root@esxi2:~] vim-cmd vmsvc/getallvms
Vmid Name File Guest OS Version Annotation
1 dc1.jb-lab.local [datastore1 (1)] dc1.jb-lab.local/dc1.jb-lab.local.vmx windows8Server64Guest vmx-08
[root@esxi2:~] vim-cmd vmsvc/power.off 1
Powering off VM:
[root@esxi2:~]
If that doesn't work, I would try running: services.sh restart
and then re-run the vim-cmd command first and then the kill -9 one after that