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Troy Hutto (left) was sentenced to 12 years in prison for the killing of Lake City teen Grace Duncan (right) in a Singer Island hotel in 2020.
WEST PALM BEACH — A Wellborn millionaire will be spending 12 years in state prison after pleading guilty to killing a Lake City teenager two years ago.
Troy Hutto, 56, changed his plea in a hearing Thursday morning in Palm Beach County, pleading guilty to manslaughter with a firearm.
Judge Cymonie Rowe sentenced Hutto to 12 years in prison. He was credited with 79 days already behind bars.
Hutto was charged with manslaughter with a firearm and possession of a weapon during a felony following the October 2020 shooting death of Lake City teen Grace Duncan in a Singer Island hotel.
Duncan’s family read an impact statement during the hearing via Zoom, according to court records.
The Reporter reached out to the family’s attorney, Tina Seifert, for comment but did not hear back.
Hutto was arrested on Oct. 30, 2020, at the Baptist Medical Center South in Jacksonville, where he had been admitted two days prior following a reaction to medication at a St. Augustine gas station, according to a Riviera Beach Police Department report.
During an interview with detectives at the hospital, the report states Hutto admitted to shooting Duncan, who was described in the report as his girlfriend, while they were playing around pretending to shoot each other with their fingers and a gun. He said he pointed the gun at Duncan, “his Gracie,” and “it went off and shot her.”
Hutto told the detectives he then placed the gun in his backpack and left in his 2020 green Dodge Challenger Hellcat, driving until he ran out of gas, adding the backpack was still in the car with his medications, the report states.
The backpack was found in the car, which had been seized by the St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office. It is unclear if the weapon was recovered.
Authorities responded to the Hilton Hotel around 10:50 a.m. on Oct. 29, 2020, for a welfare check on Duncan, a 2020 Columbia High graduate, after her parents hadn’t been able to reach her since the morning of Oct. 25, 2020.
The police report states that Burt Duncan, her father, said he knew Duncan and Hutto were at the hotel because he could see the location of his daughter’s cell phone.
Burt Duncan also told authorities he believed Hutto was giving his daughter drugs to sedate her, adding she “sounded out of character” when they last spoke, like she was possibly on drugs.
When authorities arrived at the hotel, there was a strong odor of decomposition in the hallway, the report states, and Grace Duncan’s body was found on the floor near the bathroom with a single gunshot wound to the stomach. She was covered in blood and there were live rounds of ammunition on the floor.
When asked where Duncan was, Hutto admitted he left her in the room, the report states.
According to authorities, the room was rented to Hutto and he left his cell phone and wallet, including his ID, in the room.
In January 2022, Hutto’s attorneys filed a motion to have the evidence obtained from the hotel room suppressed, alleging an illegal search.
In that motion, which the court was originally going to consider at a hearing on Feb. 6 before it was continued to June, Hutto’s attorneys said law enforcement spent hours in the hotel room collecting and searching for evidence prior to obtaining a search warrant.
Hutto was already in custody in Palm Beach County after his bond was revoked in December. That ruling came after an injunction for protection was granted in Suwannee County to a pair of women, Lisa Powers and Autumn Howell, who claimed Hutto was stalking them. They were witnesses for the state in the manslaughter case.
In 2003, Hutto co-founded the Salt Life brand with a few friends from Jacksonville Beach. The Salt Life brand, which used a hand-drawn custom tattoo as the company logo, was sold to Delta Apparel in 2013 for $15 million in cash as well as two promissory notes worth $22 million. That same year, Hutto purchased 21 acres of property in Wellborn.
The company purchase agreement also included an additional payment contingent on if sales the previous year met certain performance targets.
When the company was sold, the small start up had grown to $20 million in annual sales, according to reports.
Hutto is no longer affiliated with the company, Salt Life said in a statement released Oct. 31, 2020.