The COVID-19 pandemic is causing delays in a Janesville homicide case in Rock County Court.

Assistant District Attorney Rich Sullivan said police still have not received a death certificate for the young child they believe was killed by 31-year-old Steven Horan in early March.

The 15-month-old girl was airlifted to a Rockford hospital before passing away, and the state of Illinois requires a more lengthy coroner’s inquest to produce a death certificate.

Sullivan said the Winnebago County Medical Examiner’s Office needs the victim to be examined by a lab in New York, which has been under lockdown due to the public health crisis.

Horan’s attorneys filed a motion to dismiss the first-degree reckless homicide charge against him because of the lack of official cause of death.

Rock County Judge John Wood denied the motion on Friday, citing sufficient evidence presented in Horan’s preliminary hearing from March.

Sullivan anticipates it could be August or September before the state receives the death certificate and prosecutors can move forward with the case.