Punky Brewster's Soleil Moon Frye and Retired Chief John Matthews

Punky Brewster's Soleil Moon Frye and Retired Chief John Matthews

This edition of The Neil Haley Show opens with a Total Celebrity conversation with Soleil Moon Frye, beloved as the star of the 1980s classic Punky Brewster. Frye, an unabashed lover of the era herself, reflected on how deeply the show still moves people decades later, saying Punky was never just a show but a way of life, and that her castmate Cherie felt like a true best friend and the set like family. She pointed viewers to her Hulu documentary Kid 90, a decades-in-the-making project that began as a film about everyone else and became a personal coming-of-age story of both the teen and adult her, spanning college, marriage, four children, and years of transformation, and she hinted a new book could be next. The heart of the conversation was her work with the Ask to Be Sure campaign, raising awareness of meningitis B, a rare but fast-moving and potentially deadly infection that especially affects teens and young adults roughly sixteen to twenty-three. Frye said she had not realized the childhood meningitis vaccine does not cover meningitis B until a friend told her, and, after hearing from survivors and grieving families, she spoke with her own daughter's pediatrician. Framed as awareness rather than medical advice, her message was simple: do not be shy about asking your doctor, pharmacist, or care provider to be sure. She noted that a striking share of seventeen-year-olds had not received a single dose, and that families often assume the shots kids get for school already cover it, a gap she hopes the campaign closes by keeping the conversation going between parents, teens, and providers.

Neil then joined a Storehouse Media Group simulcast welcoming retired police chief John Matthews, who blended two very different passions into one memorable brand. A four-decade veteran of law enforcement who began with the Dallas Police Department and is known for the investigation and arrest of the city's first serial killer, Matthews went on to spend about thirty years training police nationwide, more than a hundred thousand officers, specializing in serial killers, mass shooters, and school safety, work he has also done alongside federal agencies. Rather than slow down, he founded the well-rated Casara Winery and Vineyards, focusing on Italian dry reds like Sangiovese and Montepulciano, and created True Crime and Wine, a live event and podcast in which audiences sip wine while he walks them through real cases, his own and others from around the world. He described more than a hundred sellout nights at wineries across the country and a new national tour ahead, noting his crowds are overwhelmingly women drawn to the how and the why behind these crimes. Born, almost literally, into a law enforcement family, Matthews said the most satisfying part of the career has always been helping put dangerous people behind bars and bringing families some measure of closure. He and Neil's co-host connected over shared roots in Virginia and Georgia, both stops on his upcoming tour, and he traced the surge of interest to appearances at CrimeCon, where audiences kept asking how someone could commit such acts, a question he tries to help ordinary, good-hearted people begin to understand.