Removing MC's created with Actionscript

I have created a moviclip with the following code:

_root.createEmptyMovieClip(i,_root.getNextHighestDepth());

using

_root*

to access the movieclip(s).

Then after pressing a button I want to delete the movieclips. I have tried:

_root[q].removeMovieClip() 
and 
removeMovieClip(_root[q])

but neither actually work. The only way I have found is by doing _root[1] etc but that takes too long and it wouldn’t really work because the number of movieclips created is unlimited.

Please HELP!