The Navy SEAL Who Killed Bin Laden Just Cleared Up the Biggest Mystery About His Body

More than 14 years after a U.S. Navy SEAL team killed Osama bin Laden in a pre-dawn raid in Abbottabad, Pakistan, the question of what happened to his body is back in front of millions of people.

Retired SEAL Robert O’Neill, who claims he fired the shots that killed the al-Qaeda leader on May 2, 2011, posted on X on May 19, 2025: “I didn’t bury anyone at sea, BTW…” The post came days after the Netflix docuseries American Manhunt: Osama bin Laden topped global streaming charts, drawing 12.6 million views in its first five days.

The Netflix series, according to Variety reporting on the docuseries’ debut week performance, became the most-watched title on the platform in the week of May 12–18, 2025. Its three episodes feature interviews with CIA operatives, military officials, and O’Neill himself, retracing a decade-long manhunt that reshaped security policy and the lives of millions across Africa and the world.

Who Pulled the Trigger — and Who Gets to Say So

The U.S. government has never officially confirmed the identity of the person who fired the fatal shot during Operation Neptune Spear. O’Neill, a Montana-born former senior chief petty officer with SEAL Team Six who served from 1996 to 2012, has claimed since a 2013 interview with Esquire that he was the one who killed bin Laden. He repeated the claim publicly in November 2014 in an interview with The Washington Post.

He is not the only one to make that claim. Fellow SEAL Matt Bissonnette, writing under the pseudonym “Mark Owen,” published No Easy Day in 2012, his firsthand account of the raid, which offered a different version of events. The Pentagon could not confirm who fired the fatal shots, noting that multiple SEALs fired at bin Laden.

In the Netflix docuseries, O’Neill described the moment he says he came face-to-face with bin Laden: “I turn this way and standing in front of me, two feet away is Osama bin Laden. It was one of those moments in life where things slow down.”

He said he recognized the al-Qaeda leader immediately. “He’s taller than I thought, he’s skinnier than I thought, his beard was grey/white, but I recognized his nose, this is definitely him. He’s not surrendering, he’s a threat, not only to me but to my entire team, he has to die.”

What the U.S. Government Did with the Body

According to the CIA’s official timeline of Operation Neptune Spear, bin Laden’s body was transported to Afghanistan following the raid for identity verification. DNA samples were collected and tested against samples from bin Laden’s family members. At 12:59 a.m. EDT on May 2, 2011, the CIA’s official account of Operation Neptune Spear records that bin Laden’s body was buried at sea from the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson in the North Arabian Sea.

Internal U.S. military emails obtained by the Associated Press through the Freedom of Information Act confirmed the details. An email from Rear Admiral Charles Gaouette, then deputy commander of the Navy’s Fifth Fleet, to senior officials including Admiral Mike Mullen described the procedure: “The deceased’s body was washed (ablution) then placed in a white sheet. The body was placed in a weighted bag. A military officer read prepared religious remarks, which were translated into Arabic by a native speaker. After the words were complete, the body was placed on a prepared flat board, tipped up, whereupon the deceased’s body slid into the sea.”

According to Britannica’s account, citing U.S. officials, Deputy National Security Adviser John Brennan contacted Saudi Arabia about returning bin Laden’s body to his home country. Saudi Arabia declined. With no country willing to accept the remains, U.S. officials chose burial at sea, stating they did not want a known gravesite to become a pilgrimage site for bin Laden’s followers.

I didn’t bury anyone at sea, BTW…

— Robert J. O’Neill (@mchooyah) May 19, 2025

The Conspiracy Theories — and O’Neill’s Rebuttals

The decision to bury bin Laden at sea, with no photographs of the body released publicly, has fed conspiracy theories for over a decade. The most persistent: that bin Laden was already dead before the 2011 raid, or that a body double was killed instead.

The theory gathered momentum in October 2020 when then-President Donald Trump retweeted an article promoting the body-double claim. O’Neill responded directly on social media: “Very brave men said good bye to their kids to go kill Osama bin Laden. We were given the order by President Obama. It was not a body double. Thank you Mr. President.”

His May 2025 post separated his role from the burial itself. He was on the raid. He was not on the USS Carl Vinson. The burial was handled by separate U.S. Navy personnel.

The 9/11 attacks and the decade of military operations that followed them reshaped security agreements, displaced communities, and sharpened the politics of sovereignty across the continent. Al-Qaeda’s operations in Kenya, Tanzania, and across the Sahel, and the U.S. counterterrorism response to them, remain part of the lived political and spiritual landscape for millions of Africans.

Bin Laden’s death was received differently across Africa: as justice for some, as the end of an era for others, and with sharp skepticism about U.S. military conduct for many more. The Netflix documentary’s numbers suggest the appetite for a fuller reckoning has not faded.

O’Neill, for his part, never had much patience for the ambiguity the burial created. He said he would have preferred a different outcome.

“I would have hung him from a bridge in New York City,” he told reporters.