Marilyn Yelder was horrified when she saw the news last week that a man’s body had been found on top of trash pile in Inglenook.

The following day, she saw more tragic news – four men were shot to death and the bodies of a couple missing since Valentine’s Day were found inside a car in a west Birmingham alley.

Yelder knew one of the men fatally shot in Smithfield, and she knew both victims found in Wylam.

And as she mourned, she received horrific news of her own.

The body found in the illegal dumping site was her twin brother – 37-year-old Marlin Dontae Yelder.

“When the story first came out, I just sat there in disbelief that somebody would kill somebody and just take their body somewhere and leave them,’’ she said.

“I couldn’t even leave work Friday because I was in total disbelief at the amount of violence and death that had consumed our city that day,’’ she said. “To get a call that next night, I never expected anything like this with my own family.”

“Every time I see something like that, I pray it’s not my brother,’’ Marilyn said. “And this time it was.”

A passerby made the discovery about 10:17 a.m. Thursday, Feb. 15, in the 4200 block of 48th Avenue North.

Marlin was found face down in a pile of trash in an illegal dumping site in the east Birmingham community.

Sgt. LaQuitta Wade said a person who picks up items in the area found the body and asked someone to call 911.

Yelder was officially pronounced dead on the scene at 10:36 a.m.

Police were initially unclear if foul play was involved, but the coroner’s office determined he had been shot.

He leaves behind a 14-year-old son.

Marilyn and Marlin had just had their birthday on Feb. 3.

Marilyn said she did not hear from her brother that day, which was unusual. “I just figured he was doing his own thing,’’ she said.

Still, they usually touched base with each other every couple of weeks.

“We never would have expected anything like this,’’ she said. ‘

The twins were raised in the Ensley community, graduating from Ensley High School.

Marlin was affectionately known to his friends by the nickname Sleepy. He worked on cars and was a handyman throughout his community.

“He was outgoing,’’ Marilyn said. “He was really, really friendly.”

“He was well loved,’’ she said.

Marilyn said their mother called her Saturday evening. She told her that she had received a call from the Jefferson County Coroner’s Office that Marlin had been killed.

“All I remember is screaming and I screamed so much that I passed out,’’ she said. “We cannot wrap our minds around who would do something like this.”

The family gathered that night at her mother’s home, trying to absorb the shock.

“We’re all just broken,’’ she said. “There wasn’t a dry eye in the house.”

Marilyn said she identified her brother’s body and said she was able to recognize him.

“He had not been out there long,’’ she said.

“It was a hard choice to make to view that body, but I had not seen my brother in three weeks,’’ she said. “For my closure, I had to lay my eyes on him and know that it was him.”

Marilyn is consumed by so many thoughts.

On the day that Marlin’s body was found – unbeknownst to her – she was walking across the sky bridge at Children’s of Alabama when her own child asked her why there “funeral cars” across the street at Cooper Green Hospital.

Marilyn explained that it was the coroner’s office where people were taken when they died to be identified or to wait for a funeral home to pick them up.

“And now I think about that. On that day, my brother was there, and I did not know,’’ she said. “They were working to identify him, and I was right there. That hurt.”

The final moments of her brother’s life also haunt her. What happened? What was he feeling?

“We came into this world together and I never expected for either of us to have to bury each other,’’ she said. “I wonder, ‘Did he suffer? Was he scared?’ I have a lot of questions.”

To lose a sibling is hard. To lose a twin is harder, she said.

“We were adopted and with twins, it’s a real bond,’’ Marilyn said. “There’s an emptiness. There is definitely a feeling that a piece of me is missing.”

“When it comes to blood relations,” she said, “my brother was all I had.”

Marilyn said the detective is working as hard as he can to deliver answers to the family.

“The police, they have been awesome, phenomenal,’’ she said. “I’ve been calling every day because this is new to me.”

Marilyn said she just wants to know who killed Marlin, and why.

“The most hurtful part of the whole ordeal is whatever he did, no matter what he did, if he did anything, if you made the decision to kill him, why did you have to throw him away like trash,’’ she said. “That’s what I’ll never get over.”

She said she is tired of the violence and the lack of value for human life.

“Not only are you hurting whoever it is you’re trying to hurt or kill, you’re hurting the lives of other people,’’ she said. “He has a son who will grow up without a father. He has nephews. He has family.

“We have wonderful memories of him that we will always have,’’ she said, “but they took something very important from us.”

Anyone with information is asked to call Birmingham homicide detectives at 205-254-1764 or Crime Stoppers at 205-254-7777.