1999 Nissan Sentra Lock on front, passenger-side door doesn

Interior problem
1999 Nissan Sentra Automatic 133000 miles

A few weeks ago, I locked my keys in the car and called a pop-a-lock company to send a representative out to get my keys out. He went to work on the passenger-side door with a slim-jim type tool. I watched him jam that tool inside of the car violently for a good 20 minutes to no avail. (Prior to this experience, ALL locks worked fine both with the automatic unlock buttton on my keychain as well as with the key or manual unlock inside the car.)

When the pop-a-lock guy finally gave up on the passenger-side door, he tried the same rough technique on the driver's side and eventually got the door unlocked.

About a week later, I noticed that the lock on the passenger-side door was acting sluggish when I hit the automatic lock and unlock. A few days after that, the lock stopped working automatically altogether. It would still work if I unlocked it from the inside by hand or from the outside with my key. A week or so later, those methods stopped working as well.

Now, the door will not unlock AT ALL. And my passengers are forced to crawl into the passenger seat through the driver's side door. So frustrating!

I had a mechanic tell me the whole door needed to be removed so they could see what the problem was. It seems that they could take the door panel off from the inside though. Do we need to have the whole door removed? And any thoughts on what the root of the problem might be? Thanks!