Susan Barlow Susan Ida Barlow ( previously Baldwin ) was the daughter of Ken and Valerie Barlow , twin sister of Peter , wife of Mike Baldwin and mother of Adam Barlow . Her middle name , Ida , is in honour of her paternal grandmother Ida Barlow , who died in 1961 . Susan and Peter were born in 1965 . They were raised by Ken and Val in Weatherfield until Val ' s death in 1971 , after which Ken sent the twins to live with Val ' s parents Alfred and Edith Tatlock in Glasgow , with the intention that they would return to Weatherfield when he had married again . Ultimately , Susan and Peter only paid fleeting visits to Weatherfield before they turned sixteen . In 1981 , Mike Baldwin helped Susan get a job in London . She eventually moved to Newcastle , but returned to Weatherfield in 1985 with the intention of staying . Susan started a relationship with Mike , despite him being more than twenty years older than her and Ken disapproving because of his own hatred of Mike . They got married after a short romance , but in 1987 they separated when Mike pressured Susan into having a baby , even though she wanted to put her career first . When she told Mike she ' d had an abortion , he ended the marriage and they were divorced soon after . Susan returned to Scotland and gave birth to Adam , and kept his existence secret from Mike and her family until 2001 . When Mike found out about Adam and demanded custody , Susan left Glasgow with the intention of going where Mike couldn ' t find her , but she was killed in a car crash on the journey . Adam survived . Biography . 1965 - 1985 : Early years . Susan and Peter had relatively uneventful childhoods for their first few years , although in 1965 , they almost died in a house fire , because a piece of coal fell out of the fireplace and burst into flames . Ken was out at the Rovers getting cigarettes and Valerie was furious . When Valerie was tragically killed in 1971 after being electrocuted , Ken couldn ' t cope so sent the Susan and Peter to live with their maternal grandparents in Scotland . Although Ken often considered taking the twins back , he always found a reason to keep his distance , so Susan and Peter essentially grew up without a father . 1986 - 1988 : Marriage to Mike Baldwin . In spite of Ken not being there for her when Susan was a child , the adult Susan tried to build a bond with Ken . By 1985 , Susan had moved to Newcastle . Following an argument with her mother , Deirdre , Tracy Barlow ran away from home planning to see Susan . When Susan returned to Weatherfield with Tracy , she became interested in her father ' s business , the " Weatherfield Recorder " , and began helping him out . Susan liked Weatherfield and the " Recorder " and told Ken and Deirdre she wanted to stay . They suggested she go home and think about whether such a big change was something she really wanted . Before long she was back in Weatherfield , moving in with Ken , Deirdre , and Tracy . Going out with Ken ' s arch enemy , Mike Baldwin , created a rift between Ken and Susan . Ken was extremely unhappy when he learned Mike had asked Susan to marry him and insisted she wasn ' t to see him . At that point Susan moved in with Mike . When she asked Ken to walk her down the aisle he refused to even attend the wedding . He relented , saying that if Susan would move back in with the family , he ' d walk her down the aisle . Peter told him he should go , since he had never been there for the children . Ken ran to the wedding and gave Susan away . In 1987 Susan ended up pregnant to Mike . However , she didn ' t want to have the baby as she wasn ' t in love with Mike any more , so went to have her pregnancy terminated and later claimed she miscarried , but Mike saw right through her and knew she ' d had an abortion . She later left Weatherfield once again . However , she never had an abortion and gave birth to son Adam on 3rd May 1988 , but never told her father Ken . 1988 - 2001 : Death . Many years later in 2001 , Ken discovered Susan ' s secret after son Peter let it slip during an argument that Susan never aborted Mike ' s baby . Ken went to Glasgow to visit her , but she begged Ken not to tell anyone . Ken however let it slip to Deirdre , who in turn told her ex - lover Dev Alahan , who informed Mike . Mike was angry and demanded that he wanted to see Adam . Susan decided to up sticks once again , but when trying to escape with Adam , she ended up in a car crash and was killed . Adam however managed to survive the crash . Susan was buried next to her mother Valerie . Quotes . " Oh come on Adam , we haven ' t got time . . . I ' ve told you ! " ( Final line )