There's something Doug Bliss wants you to know: He was not a juror in the Casey Anthony trial.
Repeat: He was not on the jury in the Casey Anthony trial.
It's hard to blame the 57-year-old retiree for being defensive - not after the phone calls, the interview requests and the online insults, all from people convinced he was juror No. 2 in the high-profile trial.
Many of those people don't like Bliss, or at least don't like juror No. 2. One website has a comment thread titled, "Doug Bliss Is One Of The Twelve Stupidest People Walking In America Right Now.''
By 11 a.m. Friday, 487 Facebook users had "liked'' the post, and nearly 80 had commented.
Bliss says he has no idea why some people think he was a juror. The first inkling he had of the mistake was Wednesday night, when a stranger called and started asking him about the trial. Anthony had been acquitted the day before of charges she killed her 2-year-old daughter Caylee.
"I said I don't know anything about the trial, I don't have an opinion on the trial," Bliss said. "I thought it was really odd."
He eventually hung up.
Then, early Thursday evening, a woman called Bliss while he and his wife were doing their weekly shopping at the grocery store.
"She started asking me about the Casey Anthony trial," Bliss said. "I immediately said, 'What is going on? I don't understand why you people are calling me.'"
The woman said it was all over Twitter and Facebook that he was a juror.
"I said, 'I'm what?" Bliss said. "'That's crazy.'"
Bliss handed his phone to his wife, Karen, who quickly learned the woman was calling from Good Morning America. The woman told Karen Bliss there were even pictures of Doug Bliss posted online.
"I asked her, 'Where did you get this?" Karen Bliss said. "She said, 'Twitter."
Karen Bliss immediately searched Twitter, and her husband's name came up in connection with the trial. Some more Internet surfing showed one website had even posted pictures of her husband, some of which were taken while he was playing guitar at a benefit at a St. Petersburg bar.
Doug Bliss is a fan of neither Twitter nor Facebook, but he tried posting a comment saying he wasn't a juror. It never showed up online so he's worried some people might still think he was one of the jurors who acquitted Anthony of the most serious charges against her.
"There's people out there who say I should die," Doug Bliss said.
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