Anyone can, but if you had any class or common sense you'd give the person the benefit of the doubt - because if it's true and you're making these accusations, that's a terrible thing to say to a parent.
I came from the exact situation three weeks ago and I had to go through similar pains to get into my family member's phone so I could get to his contacts list. It's not fun, and to the other poster, I never thought of going to the #$@%@ police.
My prayers go out to dustinsmom.
I think if you had any common sense you'd see through it too.
Either way if there was a real death case the police would had automaticly already retrieved that info from the victims device.
On the other hand anyone can make up a handle and a thread like this wanting info on how to break into their girlfriends, hunsbands, lost or stolen password protected iphone.
Not to be rude or insensitive but reality is it happens all the time. People lie and will lie about anything to get what they want. I deal with people like that every day and if you let your guard down and take everything anyone says without a grain of salt then you will have problems.