Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - Salt Life Clothing Founder Shoots His Girlfriend - The Michael Hutto story

Episode Date: February 4, 2025

This is the story of Michael Hutto, the founder of Salt Life, and his manslaughter conviction.

Have you heard of that clothing company Salt Life? Well, the founder of that company just unalived someone and had a mental breakdown. Now the founder, his name's Michael, and he and some other guys co-founded the clothing company Salt Life, and they make clothes for like surfers and stuff. You've probably seen their stickers on cars at some point, and mistakenly thought it said Sl-Life.

Anywho, so Michael co-found Salt Life, and later ends up selling the company for $40 million. So the dude is rich now. He is rolling in the money. But one day, all that changes. Because Michael, he's out riding an ATV. And then, kaboom, he crashes it. So he decides to start going to the gym for physical therapy.

And there at the gym is where he meets this woman, the woman of his dreams, Grace. Grace works at the gym and Michael thinks she is foin, but there's a problem. Michael, not only is he already married, he's also 54 years old, while Grace is 18. But Michael, he's like, whatever, if Leonardo DiCaprio can get away with it, why can't I? So he starts trying to riz her up.

And surprisingly, Grace is into it. She thinks Michael's old ass is foin. So they start flirting at the gym, and then they start going out on dates, and pretty soon they start smashing on the regular. And he's calling her his girlfriend. And they even start working on some business together. Now, Grace's parents, they definitely have strong opinions about their daughter dating a man literally three times her age. And one day, she calls them and she's like, hey, I'm going out of town with my old-ass boyfriend this weekend.

We're going on a business trip to Daytona. And her parents certainly aren't happy with this. But she's technically an adult, so there's nothing they can do. So Michael and Grace, they leave Lake City and they go on their trip to Daytona. And Grace's parents, they don't hear from her. like a whole day and they start to get paranoid. So they report her missing and a local police officer he comes over to their house to follow up with them. And while the officer's there, Grace actually calls her parents and she lets them know she's fine. But oddly, Grace sounds really

strange on the phone, almost like she's been drugged or something. And her parents are like, all right, this is all very weird and they ask police to do a welfare check on her. So police, they start looking for her. A day or so later, Grace calls her parents again, and she says she's fine and that they're now going from Daytona to go visit some friends in the Florida Keys. Now, on their way to the Florida Keys, Grace and Michael decide to stop at Singer Island and have, you know, a day at the beach. After their day at the beach, they head back to their hotel room, and this is where things start to get weird. Because allegedly, here is where Grace and Michael start partying. Little drugs, little alcohol, allegedly. And at some point, they start playing this little game with their

hands, like finger guns, like you would do as a kid. And I guess they're pretending to like shoot each other and they're sort of doing it back and forth, then I guess they find it hilarious. I don't know. But then, for some reason, Michael's like, hey, what if I pulled out my actual pew-pue and pointed at her? Wouldn't that be quirky and hilarious? So he takes his pew-poo out and he points it at Grace just playing around. And suddenly, bang, it goes off. And a bullet flies and hits Grace right in the stomach, and she falls to the floor. And Michael, he's like, oh, shit, and he panics. Now, I don't know what is going on in his head at this point, but he doesn't call police,

and he doesn't call paramedics. Instead, Michael decides to flee. And he puts the pew-poo in his backpack, and he runs out to his car, and he jumps in, and he drives four hours, around 280 miles, until his car straight up runs out of gas. And he pulls over at a gas station and he parks and he starts having a mental breakdown. He's twitching and he's crying and he's talking to himself. Now the gas station attendant inside he looks out and he sees that Michael is parked illegally. And he can see him twitching and crying and talking to himself and he's like, man, this guy's nuts.

So he calls the police. So then police come and they're like, I don't know what the fuck is wrong with this guy. So they take him to the hospital for evaluation. The next day, Grace's dad, see, he still hasn't heard from me. Grace. She hasn't responded to any of his texts or any of his calls, and it's been a few days. And he starts getting worried. So he uses an app on his phone to track her phone to the Hilton Hotel on Singer Island. So he calls police and he asks them to go to Singer Island to see if she's at that Hilton. And police go there and they knock on the hotel room door and no one answers,

but they can smell something foul coming from the room. So management lets them in. And that is where they find Grace's body lying on the floor. The gunshot to her stomach had unalived her. Now, when Michael fled the hotel that night, he actually left so fast that he forgot his wallet and his ID. Plus, the hotel room is rented in his name. So pretty quickly, police know he's responsible for this. And they track him down at the hospital he's at, and bam, they arrest him. Here's his mugshot. And Michael gets charged with manslaughter and he takes a plea deal and he gets sentenced to 12 years in prison. So now when you see a car driving around with one of those salt life stickers on it, you can think of this story.