"Social engineering"? Does he realize the guy whose phone it was is dead?
I'd be very curious to hear theories on how social engineering would apply here. The only path I've thought of is to target Apple employees for info on the firmware/iOS update process and/or get someone to sign your update with Apple's private key.
And Apple will probably be all right with this, they may even cooperate secretly.
He could probably murder an Apple employee or two until it's done.