He Fought Grown Men for Money as a Tween. As an Adult, He Became a Beast

One night in the winter of 1984, in a run-down motel on the western fringe of Niagara Falls, Bobby Gunn awoke to headlights and voices. His breath plumed in the cold air. Stale cigarette smoke seeped from the shag carpet. He looked at the clock: 2:00 a.m. Lying on his sleeping pad on the floor, Gunn, then 11 years old, looked to his mother, Jackie, who remained still as a corpse in the room’s queen-size bed. Gunn’s father, Robert, was gone, but that wasn’t unusual. He sometimes went on drinking sprees for weeks on end...