removeMovieClip problem

removeMovieClip is working fine on the clips I created using attachMovie, but it doesn’t remove the ones I created using createEmptyMovieClip. What’s going on?

The documentation at http://www.adobe.com/support/flash/action_scripts/actionscript_dictionary/actionscript_dictionary631.html says:

Description
Action; deletes a movie clip instance that was created with the attachMovie or duplicateMovieClip methods of the MovieClip object, or with the duplicateMovieClip action.

but it doesn’t say what to do if the clip WASN’T created that way.

Please help!!