The front-page article about Russell Yates’s search for his two daughters made me wonder why the Globe would publish such a “human interest’’ story (“32 years later, a family shroud lifts: Woman who fled with children found in Texas,’’ Jan. 18).

While I respect that a person is innocent until proven guilty, by Yates’s own admission he was an abusive husband. The implication that his wife followed through on her threat “to get even with him for his aggressions and infidelities,’’ as your reporters write, appears to make Yates the victim being punished by a vindictive spouse.

Does the fact that his wife left behind a business, a home, and a family, and never sought child support, and that her mother went to prison after providing no information about her whereabouts, not paint a picture of a victim of domestic violence fleeing her situation?

While I don’t doubt that Russell Yates yearned to see his daughters, I’m not so sure the “shroud’’ has been lifted.

Christine Ostrow

Auburndale