I am so sorry to hear what happened. Regarding the password though, if apple can’t help, I have not heard of any other avenues to get in. Maybe if you can find her iCloud/Apple account password? But I’d imagine apple is really the only ones who could realistically help… or maybe like a data recovery specialist? Best of luck.

That’s awful to hear. I am so sorry! You should check to see if she setup an Account recovery contact. They would be able to unlock the phone I believe. Here’s the link - https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212513

Unfortunately a legacy contact needs to be setup first. It can’t be setup after the fact.

Data recovery on a phone can be difficult because everything is encrypted.

The only thing Apple will do is if you provide a death certificate and legal papers showing you are the heir to the device they will remove activation lock so you can erase the device and use it. However, they won’t be able to get into the device.

Try using forgot password and icloud.com and see if she was using iCloud data storage.

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Agreed. I was hoping that she had already done that & that OP wasn’t aware of the option.