Reality show star Matthew Clate McDaniel, 33, of Dadeville is in custody tonight at the Tallapoosa County Jail in Alabama on murder charges. McDaniel is suspected of shooting Norman Deon Crayton, 40, of Jacksons Gap, AL to death early Sunday morning.
As of Monday, McDaniel remained in custody with a bond that has been set at $250,000.
McDaniel, the owner of Lakeside Excavation and Materials, is best known for his appearance on the 2012 History Channel reality show Bamazon. The show followed the trials and tribulations of a group of Americans running a gold mining operation in South America. On the show, McDaniel was a heavy equipment operator whose bio described him as “a brilliant excavator operator, and a jack-of-all trades, but he’s also a yoga-practicing, nature-lover and a California hippie.”