ChudTheBuilder Arrest Update: YouTuber Claims He’s Being Denied A Bible While Awaiting Trial
Dalton Eatherly, known online as Chud the Builder, claims Montgomery County Jail took away his Bible after moving him from solitary confinement. He says requests to get it back were denied and that a jail-issued tablet is not an adequate replacement.
ChudTheBuilder is back in the headlines for something unrelated to his ongoing criminal case. While being held at Montgomery County Jail in Clarksville, Tennessee, he has accused jail officials of preventing him from accessing a physical Bible that he says he had been using every day while in custody.
The claim became public on June 7, 2026, through posts shared online and later reposted on his official X account. According to the statement attributed to Eatherly, the issue started after he was moved out of solitary confinement. He says the Bible he had during his first few weeks in jail disappeared during the transfer and has not been returned since.
ChudTheBuilder says a tablet replaced the Bible he had for weeks
In the statement, Eatherly explained that he spent his first three weeks in a solitary cell with little besides a Bible. After being transferred to another housing unit, he says jail staff took the book away and instead provided access to religious texts through a jail-issued tablet.
According to him, that solution has created its own problems. He described the device as unreliable, claiming it frequently crashes, runs out of battery within hours, and cannot be charged during the day. He also argued that scrolling through a PDF version of scripture on the tablet makes studying difficult compared to using a physical Bible.
He claims repeated requests for a Bible were rejected
Eatherly says he tried multiple times to get another physical Bible. In his statement, he claimed he was polite in his requests and even offered to pay for a replacement copy himself.
One of the strongest accusations in the post was directed at jail administrator Capt. Oakes. Eatherly alleged that his requests were met with responses written in all capital letters and interpreted those replies as hostility toward his efforts to continue studying scripture. He also stressed that he had not received disciplinary reports during his time in jail and said he could not understand why access to the Bible had been removed.
Eatherly points to another inmate while arguing religious freedom concerns
Part of Eatherly's argument focused on what he says he observed inside the jail. He claimed that a nearby inmate had access to a physical Torah despite having access to the same electronic tablet system.
Because of that, Eatherly argued that denying him a physical Bible while allowing another inmate to keep a religious text was inconsistent. In the statement, he described the situation as a violation of his religious freedoms and said he had spent the previous 25 days studying scripture and growing closer to God.
His message was shared online as he remains behind bars
The statement was later reposted through ChudTheBuilder's X account. According to the post, Eatherly's fiancée currently has access to the account and shared the message because he wanted public attention brought to the issue.
The Bible dispute is unfolding while Eatherly remains incarcerated over the May 13 shooting of Joshua Fox outside the Montgomery County Courthouse. Court records cited by CNN state that Eatherly faces an attempted murder charge connected to the incident. As of now, Eatherly remains in Montgomery County Jail, and jail officials have not publicly responded to his allegations regarding the Bible.