Jerry Cool, 63, told The Star Press of Muncie that he was "shocked" when he saw Gary Faulkner talking on a television show on June 28 about his arrest in northern Pakistan earlier that month.
"Once I saw Gary on TV, I knew that was him in my vision," Cool told the newspaper. "To me, he's the only one that deserves that painting."
Faulkner, a bearded, 52-year-old unemployed construction worker from Greeley, Colo., says he traveled to Pakistan to kill bin Laden. He was carrying a pistol, a sword and night-vision goggles when detained in mid-June near the border with Afghanistan.
Cool, who has a beard himself, said that in 2008, he dreamed of a "man with gray hair and a dark beard" killing the al-Qaida leader, and that he committed the scene to canvas.
The painting, "A Renaissance Dream of 9-11: The Killing of Osama bin Laden," shows a bin Laden-like figure on one knee in a thigh-length white robe and sandals, wielding a sword. He's being stabbed with a spear by what appears to be an armored Roman soldier with a beard, while two others fight on horseback in the foreground.
After Faulkner's TV appearance, Cool reached out to Faulkner's brother and told him he wanted to give Faulkner his painting. Scott Faulkner told his brother, who called Cool on Sunday and arranged to stop in Muncie while driving back to Colorado from a visit to Massachusetts.
Faulkner told the paper that shared the vision Cool painted.
"When I saw it, I knew it instantly. I told my brother, 'I know this place,"' he said.
Faulkner told the newspaper he's going to hang the painting in his living room.
