There's one case that has always haunted Mike Kincaid since his days as an Alaskan state trooper.

It was in April 1981 that he responded to a call about a cabin riddled with bullet holes in the woods outside the village of Copper Center.

The scene was particularly strange, he noted, because tracks revealed the shooter had used an airplane for transportation.

"Usually when you find a cabin shot up (in remote areas), it would be kids on snow machines," Kincaid observed.

Nothing happened with it, he added, until a couple years later, after he was transferred to a post across the state.

An investigator called Kincaid with grisly news; he was tracking a serial killer who had been kidnapping women, then hunting and murdering them in the Alaskan wilderness.

The cabin, the investigator suspected, could be one of the crime scenes.

"I thought 'Wow, that's intriguing,' and certainly wanted to follow up on it," Kincaid said.

But he was too far away to get involved, he said. And once the killer, the notorious Robert Hansen, was caught and revealed the site of 17 graves, there was enough evidence to lock him up for eternity, without looking into other suspicious sites.

Like the shot-up cabin.

"It's always bothered me we never got back to it," said Kincaid, who now lives in Hayden.

Enough so, that when he heard that Amber Entertainment was shooting a feature film about the serial killer this fall with John Cusack and Nicholas Cage, he called up the London and Los Angeles-based company to get involved.

"I'm a persistent type person," he explained with a chuckle.

His interest stems from his loose ties to the events, he said, and the intensity of the story. That up to 21 young women in Alaska had been kidnapped and killed, the crimes unknown until one finally escaped.

"I thought it was a tragedy this guy got away with it for so long," Kincaid said. "If it wasn't for one girl who got loose and flagged down a trucker, if not for that girl, the case never would've been revealed."

The director and producers of the film, "Frozen Ground," seemed to be intrigued with Kincaid, he said. Maybe a little because of his history, but more because the experienced pilot has friends with a Super Cub airplane that looks just like the one the killer used.

"We would be able to use that for the movie," Kincaid had offered.

So when "Frozen Ground," premiers, take a close look at the figure flying the plane.

Kincaid has been cast to be the pilot stunt double for John Cusack.

"It's exactly what I wanted," he confessed, adding that the flying will be pretty simple, straight going, nothing too fancy. "I love a good adventure, and this sounds like the chance of a lifetime."

No sweat for the 61-year-old Texas native, who flew bush planes during his 20 years as a trooper and who now teaches seaplane instruction in Kootenai County.

He will, however, have to wear a wig and shave off his mustache of 30 years to pass as the handsome Hollywood actor.

"I can get by," Kincaid said. "It'll grow back."

He has also been told that he'll have to teach Cusack how to climb into a bush plane, a small aircraft generally used in remote areas.

"The Super Cub takes a little bit of technique, so you don't look silly," Kincaid explained.

Spokespeople for Amber Entertainment could not be reached for comment.

The company was created in 2009 by New Line Cinema veterans, according to its website. Most of its projects are currently in production.

Kincaid will join the filming later this month in Anchorage, he said. He's also been helping track down vintage planes fitting the setting of the real events, he said.

It doesn't pay badly, he added.

"It's a lot more than I make in a day of seaplane instruction," he said.

He hopes that maybe young folks who see the film will think about making responsible decisions to avoid such dangerous encounters, he said.

"I hope that people take something positive out of it," he said.

One major perk: Once he arrives back in Alaska, he intends to revisit that cabin, he said. He'll check around, he said, to see if there's anything worth finding.

"To return there, that would be coming full circle for me," Kincaid said.