Passenger Door Stuck - Repair Options?

[cry0]

I'll try to make this short and detailed. I have a 2007 Yaris Base Model, which has treated me awesomely aside from the bolts under the passenger/rear tire clanking on a bump (a topic for another day). A few days ago, I unlocked my passenger side door with the key (something I rarely do) and after that... The door refused to open. I climbed in the passenger side, manually unlocked it, and all seemed well. Until I decided to "test" and lock the door and open it with the handle on the inside. This was a mistake. It didn't open, and nothing would change that.

At first, manually moving the lock was impossible; it was stuck and good. I managed to pry the door panel back enough to see how the lock mechanism worked, but even using the rod manually would not let the door open. I could hear it trying, but it just wouldn't go.

After playing with it handle, the rod, and the door lock switch for about 45 minutes, a miracle happened; the door opened. I was overjoyed. I took the panel the rest of the way off and pulled out the mechanism, opened it up, and gave everything a good cleaning and regreasing. It seemed to work fine now, so I put everything back together. To my horror... it stopped working again. Same problem. At least now the lock switch was moving, but it just wouldn't open.

Now, I can't get the door open. At all. There are no junk yards with a Yaris, Tacoma, or FJ in the area to salvage a new assembly from (from what I found they are all the same) so that I could just break the door open (gotta do what you gotta do, right?).

So, is there a way to remove the striker from behind the door panel? I see the bolt heads are facing the door which leads me to believe this is no good. I really can't afford a new assembly and would rather just take another go at trying to fix the one I have and maybe clean the motor and make sure everything was connected right, mechanically speaking. Any ideas?