Q: previous owner is dead , now what should I do?

Welcome to the Apple community.

Contact AppleCare (or Apple ID Support), upon speaking to an operator you should explain that your problem is related to your Apple ID, this way you will not be charged for assistance, even if you don’t have an AppleCare plan.

I'm not exactly sure what procedures are in place for such events but Apple can assist in such cases, but it may take a while and you may need to provide a death certificate and a note from the executor that the device has been willed to yourself, along with an original proof of purchase.

danial7 wrote:

 

I bought a iphone 5s , I erased it , now i want to set it up but i dont know the password of apple id and  previous owner is dead

, now what should I do?

please help me

If you are not related to the previous owner the phone is useless to you. See the other post for the details.

When the previous owner signed in to iCloud to enable the activation lock, he/she was agreeing to these terms.

The password that you need to unlock the phone is part of the non-transferable account. If you were named as the successor to the account, you may have a way to have it unlocked.