A genteel squabble about serial-killer statistics

Everyone loves a good-natured statistics squabble (however, many statisticians would squabble with the statistic stated in the first part of this sentence). The Three-Toed Sloth blog entered into a squabble recently, beginning with this assertion:

Because my so-called friends like to torment me, several of them made sure that I knew a remarkably idiotic paper about power laws was making the rounds, promoted by the ignorant and credulous, with assistance from the credulous and ignorant, supported by capitalist tools:

M. V. Simkin and V. P. Roychowdhury, "Stochastic modeling of a serial killer", arxiv:1201.2458 …

(Thanks to investigator Stephanie Wilson for bringing this to our attention.)