During the 1980s, Zanchi befriended a young biker and Harley-Davidson enthusiast named Jean-François "La Pie" André, who got him interested in the subculture.
[3] In January 2000, Zanchi was paroled after serving 8 years of his sentence, immediately returning to his girlfriend and to André's bar, where he was greeted as a hero.
On November 2, his girlfriend gave birth to twins, Gino and Enzo, prompting him to abandon his life of crime and to focus on his family.
Still hellbent on avenging his best friend, he bought two unlicensed 9mm pistols and started stalking his future victims in an attempt to figure out the best way to kill them without being caught.
[6] At this time, authorities began suspecting that Zanchi might indeed be the killer, wiretapping his car for several months in an effort to gather incriminating evidence, but this proved unsuccessful.
He then loaded the dead man's body into his car and dumped it near the Roche Péréandre, the place where Zanchi believed André had been killed, and promptly left.
[5] The following month, after implicating himself in this murder, Zanchi became the prime suspect in the investigation, who nonetheless interviewed other acquaintances in order to clarify some inconsistencies in their testimonies.
After being placed in custody, he fiercely denied committing the three murders, but openly bragged about being a good shot with his pistol, as well as being the "best robber in the region" and a "great avenger".
Three days later, he was indicted for the murders of Crouzet, Di Bacco and Népote-Cit, as well as carrying an unlicensed firearm, before being remanded in custody to await trial.
While he was now branded a serial killer, the family of Jean-François André still defended him, claiming that he had been heavily affected by the death of the man he considered to be his "foster brother".
Following his arrest, the press gave Zanchi various nicknames, including "The Cleaner" (referring to him covering up his tracks after the murders), "The Helmeted Avenger" and "The White Knight".
On 19 November 2010, Zanchi was brought before the criminal court of Privas, where he was convicted of carrying an unlicensed firearm and sentenced to 30 months imprisonment.
[8] According to the jurors, he was a vigilante with a very high risk of possible recidivism, taking an "obsession with crime" and turning into a force to kill rivals in order to "avenge" his allies.
[10] Attorney Sylvain Cormier was appointed as his new lawyer, and at trial, he argued that his client was actually innocent, claiming that if he was the killer, he would not have waited years before killing the victims.
The court, on the other hand, claimed that it was the dismissal of the investigation into André's death a few weeks after Zanchi's release that had prompted him to begin his killing spree.
[10] On 28 March, Zanchi was again found guilty in all three murders, but the court, finding mitigating circumstances, commuted his sentence to 30 years imprisonment.