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WILKES-BARRE — California-based technology giant Apple has refused a request by the county district attorney’s office to open the passcode-protected iPhone of a city woman who died more than two years ago in suspicious blaze.
Luzerne County District Attorney Stefanie Salavantis on Wednesday said Apple denied access to the iPhone 5C belonging to Laurie Merritt, a 51-year-old postal worker whose body was discovered in the attic of her Wyoming Street home on April 14, 2014.
The nature of Merritt’s death, initially ruled accidental, was changed to “pending” after a state police fire marshal determined the fire was intentionally set. No one has been charged in her death.
Investigators tried unsuccessfully to unlock the phone before turning to a court order and three search warrants. The documents issued in Pennsylvania, Salavantis said, can not be enforced in California where the company is headquartered.
Salavantis said there was little she could offer regarding the ongoing investigation or her office’s pursuit into the contents of the iPhone, but said she continues to consider all options regarding their next course of action.
“We’re trying to figure out if there’s another way we can get the cooperation of Apple,” Salavantis said, noting that connecting with a live company representative was “almost impossible.”
She would not rule out the possibility of having Apple unlock the phone through search warrants.
“That’s what we’re doing,” she said. “But we are also thinking of other ways to get the content.”
The local case was similar to the legal fight between the FBI and Apple over the iPhone used by Syed Farook, who, along with his wife, Tashfeen Malik, attacked and killed 14 people on Dec. 2, 2015, in San Bernardino, California.
The husband and wife were killed in a shootout that followed and federal investigators later sought access to a phone issued to Farook by his employer, San Bernardino County.
Unable to open the smartphone, the FBI went to court to compel Apple to develop software to disable a function that erases the device’s data after repeated unsuccessful attempts to determine the passcode. But in late March, the U.S. Justice Department said the order was unnecessary because the FBI had found a way to unlock the iPhone without Apple’s help.
In the Merritt investigation, the model of the iPhone is different and Apple has the capability to open it without taking any extraordinary steps, Salavantis had said.