Tarantino film editor Sally Menke dies while hiking

LOS ANGELES - Director Quentin Tarantino's longtime film editor, who went hiking with her dog amid extreme heat Monday, was discovered dead early morning by searchers in the Hollywood Hills, according to law-enforcement sources.

Award-winning Long-Island-born film editor Sally Menke, 56, worked on such movies as "Pulp Fiction," "Kill Bill" and "Jackie Brown." Menke had gone hiking in the morning, and her friends alerted police after she failed to come home.

Search dogs, a Los Angeles Police Department helicopter and officers from patrol units spent hours in Griffith Park searching for her.

Her locked car was found in a Griffith Park parking lot.

The sources, who spoke on the condition that they not be named because the investigation was ongoing, said Menke's body was found at the bottom of a ravine just after 2 a.m. Her dog was sitting next to her body, which was about a football field's length from nearby homes.

LAPD Lt. Bob Binder said Menke and a hiking buddy set out about 9 a.m. to hike a trail in Bronson Canyon, in the shadows of the Hollywood sign. An hour later, Menke's partner decided to turn back.

Menke and her Labrador retriever continued on.

That was the last time she was reported seen. Friends and family contacted authorities about 4 p.m.

Sources familiar with the death investigation believe Menke became disoriented and collapsed, and the weather conditions contributed to her death. The coroner's office is trying to determine whether the heat, which reached a record 113 degrees in downtown Los Angeles on Monday, played a role in Menke's death.

Menke was born in Mineola and graduated from NYU in 1977. She'd worked on the film "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" in 1990 before Tarantino's "Reservoir Dogs" in 1992. She edited all of Tarantino's movies and films such as "Mulholland Falls" and "All the Pretty Horses" in between.