First, the iPhone fingerprint system will not work with fingers that are dead. It requires living fingers. So sorry, your theory fails on that problem alone.
Second, the iPhone 5C the San Bernardino Public Health Department gave to its employees has no fingerprint sensor. Ergo, a finger, dead or alive will not unlock it. So sorry again, it won't unlock by a non-existent TouchID that doesn't work on an iPhone which doesn't have one.
Nice try.
Another way?
They cloned the phone and disabled the 10 failed attempts self destruction feature. Thus able to try all of the combinations?