From Builder to Booking: Streamer Dalton Eatherly Faces Attempted Murder Charges

When a public figure lives their life on camera, every mistake gets streamed in real time. That’s the reality Dalton Eatherly, better known as Chud the Builder, is now facing after a shooting outside the Montgomery County Courthouse on Wednesday landed him with serious felony charges.

The Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office booked Eatherly on criminal attempt: murder, employing a firearm during dangerous felony, aggravated assault, and reckless endangerment with a deadly weapon. According to authorities, officers responded to reports of shots fired outside the courthouse after a fight between two men escalated into gunfire. Both men suffered bullet wounds and were treated—one transported to a local hospital, the other at the scene. Both were listed in stable condition.

Here’s where the live-stream factor becomes the centerpiece of this story. Eatherly broadcast the entire incident, claiming self-defense. He said he was jumped outside the courthouse and fired shots to protect himself, and further claimed he accidentally shot himself in the chaos. The Montgomery County District Attorney General’s Office identified him as a suspect and took him into custody before formal charges were filed.

This isn’t Eatherly’s first brush with the law in recent days. Just last week, he was arrested in Nashville on disorderly conduct and theft of services charges. Police said he got into a confrontation with restaurant customers who asked him to stop filming them, then skipped out on a $371.55 bill. The pattern suggests someone increasingly willing to document controversy rather than avoid it.

What makes this case particularly notable is the role of the live-stream itself. In an era where documentation is instant and permanent, a suspect’s own broadcast becomes potential evidence. Eatherly’s decision to stream the courthouse incident means his account exists in the public record, available to prosecutors and the court. Whether his self-defense claim holds weight will depend on what that footage actually shows—not on his framing of it.

The controversial streamer’s trajectory from internet personality to defendant in an attempted murder case underscores a larger question: Does constant documentation of life’s worst moments give you protection or create liability?