Alex Murdaugh’s son Buster is seen arriving at funeral service for his mother Libby, 85, at family plot in Hampton, South Carolina

Family and friends gathered Tuesday for the funeral of Alex Murdaugh’s mother, Elizabeth ‘Libby’ Murdaugh, who died last week at the age of 85.

Exclusive images obtained by DailyMail.com show more than a hundred mourners attended the service at Varnville United Methodist Church in Hampton, South Carolina, which was followed by an engagement at the family plot in Hampton Cemetery.

Alex Murdaugh, 55, who is now in prison for the murders of his wife, Maggie, 52, and their youngest son, Paul, 22, as well as a series of financial crimes, was not present.

As a violent prisoner, and one who has been disciplined for communicating with a documentary film crew, as well as for using another inmate’s telephone privileges, Murdaugh was not eligible for a special day of release under the guidelines of McCormick Correctional Institution, where is currently located. be retained.

He is serving two life sentences with no hope of parole for the crimes that occurred on June 7, 2021.

Murdaugh’s eldest son, Buster, 30, unmistakable for the distinctive red hair he and his brother inherited from their father, was there to pay his respects to his grandmother who, according to her obituary, was surrounded by family and friends when he died at his home in Varnville on March 19.

Buster, who is the only surviving member of his family other than his imprisoned father, wore a gray suit to the service Tuesday.

Photos show Murdaugh’s oldest son being hugged and comforted by family members as they gathered outside the church between the funeral and burial.

Alex Murdaugh had attempted to force his mother to provide him with an alibi even though the elderly woman was suffering from dementia at the time of his crimes.

The former librarian and teacher had had health problems for years and was therefore ineligible to testify at her son’s trial last year.

A jury decided that Murdaugh had driven to his mother’s house after gunning down his wife and son to find an alibi.

On the night of Maggie and Paul’s murders, he told investigators that he had left his hunting lodge, Moselle, to visit Libby at her home.

Murdaugh claimed he spent 40 minutes with her, watching a show, before returning to the hunting estate to find Maggie and Paul brutally shot to death near the family’s kennels.

They had both been shot several times at close range: Paul with a shotgun and Maggie with a rifle.

But Murdaugh’s alibi collapsed at trial when his mother’s caregiver, Mushelle Smith, took the stand to testify that Murdaugh had indeed visited him that night, but that the “unusual” trip lasted just 20 minutes.

He said Murdaugh appeared to hide material he described as a “blue tarp” and left twenty minutes after arriving.

She described Muraugh as “fidgety” and recalled that he later called her on the phone and tried to convince her to tell him that she had been at her mother’s house almost twice as long as she actually had been.

Investigators found a blue raincoat covered in gun residue in the back of Murdaugh’s mother’s property.

Similarly, Murdaugh’s claim that he had not been in the pound with Maggie and Paul in the moments before their deaths was exposed as a lie in an iPhone video.

The video clip, taken by Paul and sent to a friend minutes before his death, captured Murdaugh’s distinctive voice in the background, irrefutably placing him at the scene of the crimes.

Today, Reverends Jack Hutto and John Culp remember ‘Libby’ as a woman whose ‘greatest loves were family, grandchildren and friends.’

She was married to former prosecutor Randolph Murdaugh III for 60 years.

The elected prosecutor, along with his father and grandfather, oversaw criminal cases in and around Hampton County for nearly nine decades.

Randolph was at the hospital the night Maggie and Paul were shot to death.

Libby was buried next to her late husband, who died on June 10, 2021, just three days after the horrific murders of Maggie and Paul.

Their headstones stand side by side in the family plot.

Libby’s daughter Lynn Goettee and sons Randy and John Marvin were also there to mourn their mother’s passing along with their spouses and Libby’s numerous grandchildren, nieces and nephews.