A Tyee reader-funded series scooped up gold at last night's annual Canadian Online Publishing Awards in Toronto, hosted by Masthead Magazine.

"Death in Remand: A Reader-Funded Tyee Inquiry" by reporter Richard Warnica won the category of best online-only article or series of articles. Other nominees in the category include CBC News, iPolitics, La Presse, The Grid, The Huffington Post and the Vancouver Observer, along with a number of other Tyee series.

In the series, Warnica investigates the death of John Parker in the North Fraser Pretrial Centre, drawing on internal government reviews obtained through freedom of information requests, court transcripts and interviews. The series reveals lax policies about double bunking potentially violent inmates and how overcrowding in our jail system increases the deadly risk to the legally innocent awaiting trial.

The series was edited by Chris Wood.

"Congratulations to Richard, an extremely talented journalist who did fantastic work on this series," said Tyee editor David Beers, "and congrats to Tyee readers whose generous contributions to the Fellowship Fund allowed Richard to carry out his investigation and writing over the course of many weeks."

"We are also proud that four other projects by reporters for The Tyee and Tyee Solutions Society were nominated for the same award," said Beers, adding "That created some good natured competitive spirit among the many people involved here. We're all excited for Richard."

Warnica's "Death in Remand" series was supported by a reader-funded Tyee Investigative Reporting Fellowship. Tyee fellowships, worth $5,000, are awarded to independent journalists wishing to pursue in-depth reporting on a topic that educates and engages citizens on an issue important to British Columbians. Applications for the latest round of fellowships are open and will be accepted until Nov. 15. Find more details here.

With the launch of the Tyee Builder voluntary subscription program, which goes directly to fund journalism on The Tyee, it will be the last round of the fellowship program.