You're listening to one explained, Season 5 Episode 5, when Love breaks down, Part 2.

Please note the following episodes contain details of events that some may find disturbing

and are not suitable for children.

Things had been steadily sliding for Susan after the death of her mother from cancer,

when Susan was only 14, though in truth they'd been sliding for some time before that.

Susan Atkins was born in 1948 in San Gabriel, California.

With one older and one younger brother, her family moved a number of times as she was growing

up but were based mainly in San Jose.

Superficially at least, to outsiders they seemed normal enough.

Later, Susan would claim that as a young girl she was sexually abused by a male relative

and that both her parents drank heavily.

By 12 years old, she was shoplifting regularly.

Having been brought up to believe in God, her parents' alcoholism and later her mother's

painful and premature death left her angry and resentful that any God would sanction

such things.

She had been left to effectively take over her mother's role in the home and having

to watch her father drink himself into a drunken stupa every night only serve to harden

her sense of injustice.

Before long, she would find herself secretly frequenting the bars on the quieter edges

of town, seeking comfort in the alcohol and company she found there.

Feeling increasingly restless and trapped by her predicament, her grades at school began

to suffer and after being told she would have to repeat her junior year, she made the

...