Marking your own question as 'solved' is likely to cause people to ignore it on the asssumption it's been answered.
There is absolutely nothing whatever you can do yourself to get past the Activation Lock. If the deceased was a family member there is a process whereby you can ask Apple to unlock it: https://al-support.apple.com/#/additional-support
Note that:
- You will have to get a Court Order permitting Apple to unlock it
- You will need know the Apple ID used to lock it
- The process will completely erase the device.
If the deceased was not a family member then there is nothing you or anyone else can do.