AMHERST - More than 14 years after University of Massachusetts nursing student Maura Murray disappeared, friends and family are still hoping for answers.

Last month, they created a GoFundMe page hoping to raise money to use ground-penetrating radar to search areas of interest.

The Hanson resident was a junior nursing student when she disappeared on Feb. 9, 2004. The 21-year-old packed up her dorm room and emailed her professors to tell them she was going home for the week because of a death in the family, but there was no death in the family.

She disappeared on Route 112 in Haverhill after crashing her car into a tree. A witness told police Murray was unharmed after the accident, but when police arrived minutes later she was gone.

The family has been helped by the Molly Bish Foundation and the Licensed Private Detectives Association of Massachusetts Inc., which help families dealing with unsolved crimes. The Murray family lives in various places in Massachusetts.

Friends of Maura Murray launched the GoFundMe drive on what would have been Murray's 36 birthday, May 4.

Organizer Maggie Freleng, an investigative journalist and who went to UMass, and former U.S. Marshal Art Roderick investigated the case and created the documentary "The Disappearance of Maura Murray."

Freleng wrote this past weekend, "My eyes were opened to how many people from across the country are interested in Maura's story and are looking for answers. I met people from Newfoundland to Australia to Alabama to London spreading the word and inquiring about Maura."

Besides money for testing, they are also raising "additional reward money for information leading to Maura. The money will be held by us until someone comes forward to claim it. With confirmation by the police that this person has indeed provided information leading to Maura, we will give them the money, as is standard protocol. If it is not claimed in two years we will donate it to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children."

"Someone knows something," Freleng wrote.

People leaving messages on the site wrote about how Murray is in their thoughts every day and how they hope there will be "closure" for her family.

As of Monday night, 212 people had contributed $6,940 to the fund. The organizers set a $10,000 goal.